CNN Living with Aids
In Port Harcourt - last night i watched CNN Living with Aids with famous African reporter/documentary film maker, Sorious Samura. Pretty f**ing depressing stuff but I had to watch, especially after 2 hours of MTV base.
He spent 3 weeks in a hospital in Zambia, where many of the patients were dying of aids and even a greater number were children. He also spent time living in the local village and living, laughing and sharing the lives of the locals, many of who were effected by aids. What was so unbelievable was the attitude of many of the people who had been infected with aids, most notably the men, who seemed to have such a nonchalant disregard to their responsibility to ensure that they practice safe sex as opposed to ‘skin on skin’, to prevent the spread of the disease. Even the local pastor, seemed to preach abstinence as opposed to the use of a condom in a culture where promiscuity and sex are so obviously prevalent and inevitable. His argument was that condoms were man made and not from God. My question to him was who made AIDS?
It’s easy to sit here and apply an educated western perspective and dismantle the ideas of rural villagers, who lack the access to knowledge, education, wealth and the power of choice that all these bring. But the inability for many people to simply grasp the fact that God alone will not save them from Aids is so infuriating. Especially when you have 3 generations of the same family, mother, father, daughter and child all dying from the virus.
The inevitability of death is a fact. But to see that line so clearly in front of you, straight and unbending must be the hardest thing in the world. I think the seminal moment for me was when, after weeks of hearing the loud nightly throbbing of the local bar, Sorious decided to go and investigate for himself and found the local population of young men and women, drinking and dancing their sorrows away. A brief conversation with two girls (sex workers) highlighted the fact that even they, often consented to ‘skin to skin’ sex and charged more for it than sex with a condom. This they stated, was what they had to do to survive.
However, the most sad and frightening revelation came from a young man, who was HIV positive and stated that, all he wants to do at the end of the week is get drunk and find the closest girl and have sex with her. He didn’t use a condom and didn’t care if he passed on the virus. He had no remorse. When confronted with the question of how he’d feel if another man with his same condition had slept with his sisters, unprotected knowing that he had HIV. His simply reply was, ‘I don’t care’.
HIV/AIDS - This is the death of my people, my race, my continent – our poverty, consolidated by our ignorance and the unwillingness to challenge cultural taboos and subsequently change is wiping out our population and making us a feeding ground for the new age plague. Whilst the revelations of the laws of God, seem to have done little to quell the advancing wave, that wants to drown us all. After all, Christianity came to us to change us because we were deemed ignorant and uncivilised. It seems it’s failing to save us, it has failed to save us because the curses of the new world, need new world ideology. Stay safe, stay protected – stay alive.
We all know the
He spent 3 weeks in a hospital in Zambia, where many of the patients were dying of aids and even a greater number were children. He also spent time living in the local village and living, laughing and sharing the lives of the locals, many of who were effected by aids. What was so unbelievable was the attitude of many of the people who had been infected with aids, most notably the men, who seemed to have such a nonchalant disregard to their responsibility to ensure that they practice safe sex as opposed to ‘skin on skin’, to prevent the spread of the disease. Even the local pastor, seemed to preach abstinence as opposed to the use of a condom in a culture where promiscuity and sex are so obviously prevalent and inevitable. His argument was that condoms were man made and not from God. My question to him was who made AIDS?
It’s easy to sit here and apply an educated western perspective and dismantle the ideas of rural villagers, who lack the access to knowledge, education, wealth and the power of choice that all these bring. But the inability for many people to simply grasp the fact that God alone will not save them from Aids is so infuriating. Especially when you have 3 generations of the same family, mother, father, daughter and child all dying from the virus.
The inevitability of death is a fact. But to see that line so clearly in front of you, straight and unbending must be the hardest thing in the world. I think the seminal moment for me was when, after weeks of hearing the loud nightly throbbing of the local bar, Sorious decided to go and investigate for himself and found the local population of young men and women, drinking and dancing their sorrows away. A brief conversation with two girls (sex workers) highlighted the fact that even they, often consented to ‘skin to skin’ sex and charged more for it than sex with a condom. This they stated, was what they had to do to survive.
However, the most sad and frightening revelation came from a young man, who was HIV positive and stated that, all he wants to do at the end of the week is get drunk and find the closest girl and have sex with her. He didn’t use a condom and didn’t care if he passed on the virus. He had no remorse. When confronted with the question of how he’d feel if another man with his same condition had slept with his sisters, unprotected knowing that he had HIV. His simply reply was, ‘I don’t care’.
HIV/AIDS - This is the death of my people, my race, my continent – our poverty, consolidated by our ignorance and the unwillingness to challenge cultural taboos and subsequently change is wiping out our population and making us a feeding ground for the new age plague. Whilst the revelations of the laws of God, seem to have done little to quell the advancing wave, that wants to drown us all. After all, Christianity came to us to change us because we were deemed ignorant and uncivilised. It seems it’s failing to save us, it has failed to save us because the curses of the new world, need new world ideology. Stay safe, stay protected – stay alive.
We all know the
posted by frieddodo at 2.12.05
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