The Fifteenth M. A. Thomas Memorial Lecture.
ECONOMICS, RELIGION AND ALL ELSE AS IF PEOPLE MATTERED!
1. The People first
People matter. Persons come first. The human community is central, ultimate and decisive. That is the truth we recall today, a truth to which we do well to re-dedicate ourselves on this occasion.
Some people, if not all of you, may remember that the phrase, “Economics as if people mattered”, is the sub-title of a book authored by the British Economist E.F. Schumacher, and published in 1973. The main title of the book reads, “Small is Beautiful”. The author died in 1986. But the appeal of his work, as a humanizing spiritual message, is perennial.
What Schumacher affirms has relevance beyond the borders of economics. Not only in the realm of economics do people matter, but in relation to politics as well, and judiciary, government, medicine, research, science, and technology, art and literature, agriculture, industry and development, ethics, culture, and religion and worship. In all these, people come first. Everything on earth and in history is there for the service of people, for their welfare and growth, their fulfillment and happiness. Things and movements are there to affirm and promote the dignity, the freedom, the rights and the creativity of every human person, every human group, and of the entire human family, and to challenge all and enable all to relate to one another in beautiful human ways, and to walk with God our ultimate Origin and Destiny. Our everlasting happy Home.
Schumacher lays accent on the human which includes organic farming, small scale machines, intermediate technology, political decentralisation and regionalism as well as common ownership and workers’ control. He was a close student of Gandhi, of non-violence and of ecology. With Gandhi he rejected gigantism and mass production while advocating production by the masses, using their own resources, inventions and skills, and producing in order to meet the real needs of the people.
Theodore Roszak, introducing Schumacher and his work, observes: “Bigness is the nemesis of anarchism, whether the bigness is that of the public or private bureaucracies, because from bigness comes impersonality, insensitivity, and a lust to concentrate abstract power. Hence Schumacher’s title, Small is Beautiful. He might just as well have said “small is free, efficient, creative, enjoyable, enduring”---. In the Gandhi-Schumacher world view, labour can be “a freely-chosen, non-exploitative, and creative value in its own right”; work need not be eliminated in favour of machines; the industrial man’s “ecological stupidity” can be avoided, as well as “the terrible simplicities of quantification”, and thus avoid overlooking or distorting “the incommensurable qualities of life, especially… “health, beauty and permanence”.
2. Religious basis.
2a). According to the Hebrew scriptures human beings are the crown of creation. God made them in His own Image and Likeness, and gave them power over the earth. (Ge 1: 26-30). They were endowed with intelligence, freedom and moral consciousness: with the ability to discern and pursue truth as opposed to falsehood and error; the capacity to choose, to love, to repent, and definitively to commit oneself. Therefore God entrusted the earth with all its wealth and wonder to people.
So precious are people to God that God cares to educate them and help them grow and mature, through commandments they have to keep, through trials they have to endure, and through achievements and joys they may celebrate. Some people He chooses as specially favoured, like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph through whom He seeks to renew the rest of the family. And when some people enslave and oppress others, God intervenes powerfully to re-establish freedom and equality. He enables midwives to dare defy imperial orders and save babies, and earn the collaboration of three other women, and thus to render the Exodus revolution and Biblical religion possible.
2b). For the Hebrew Prophets, the essential and indispensable factor in the process of humanisation is the practice of justice and mercy. The just and the merciful are truly human and acceptable to God. (Hos 6:6, Mtt 9: 9-13; Isa 58). Compassion for the suffering and helpless brother or sister, for a widow or an orphan or a foreigner or somebody ostracized as a sinner, is far more spiritual and saving than blood-offering and temple liturgies. Recall the message of the prophets, and the story of the Good Samaritan as told by Jesus (Lk 10; Hos 5&6; Isa 58; Mic 6).
In the Book of Numbers, chapter 27, there is the story of five girls who had no brothers, and who, on the death of their father, laid claim to paternal property to the surprise and scandal of everybody. According to prevailing custom and law, girls had no right of inheritance; and such property had to go to the nearest male relative. As the girls stood before the entire community and pressed their claim, Moses took the case to God. And what was God’s response? God said: The girls are in the right, change you customs, reshape your laws. For God too, people matter, girls too matter. A narrative which loudly proclaims that people matter and that people come before traditions that are insufficiently sensitive to the rights and dignity of people.
2c). It is the central proclamation of the Gospel that God so loved the world as to give His only Son for its, for the people’s, liberation and salvation. God so loves the world that He clothes the flowers, feeds the birds, takes note of every sparrow that falls to the ground, counts the hair on our heads, which even the fondest parent or most enamoured spouse never thinks of doing. He loves people so much that he makes his sun shine on good people and on bad people alike, and gives his rain to these that love him as well as to those that ignore or reject him: he meets the needs of all. (Jn 3: 16; Mtt 6: 25-34; 10: 26-31; 5: 43-48). The attitude we should have is the one Jesus had. Instead of clinging to his divine powers and privileges, the Son of God emptied himself freely, “took the nature of a servant, humbled himself and walked the path of obedience all the way to death on the cross. For this reason God raised him to the highest place above.” (Phil 2: 3-11). Before Jesus’ birth, His Mother sang a ‘song of high revolt’, celebrating the dream of an egalitarian social order in which God will dethrone the mighty and lift up the lowly, and will fill the hungry with good things while sending the rich away with empty hands. (Lk 2: 46-56).
Jesus’ first address to the people of his village described his mission as bringing news which the poor can experience as joyful and life-giving; and giving sight to the blind, liberty to captives, and liberation to the oppressed. These themes and services recur through out His life. He disclosed how much people matter to Him and to the Father by healing the sick, feeding the hungry, weeping with the sorrowful, forgiving sinners, and raising the dead. But He did this even more deeply and touchingly by personal participation in their poverty, pain, agony and humiliation and death. (Lk 4: 16-30; 7; Jn 11; Mk 14-15).
Also in a last discourse about end-time judgment, the people matter; people who, from the creation of the world, have cared to feed the hungry, to give a drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, to shelter the homeless, to take care of the sick, and to visit those detained in prisons. These sufferers matter so much that Jesus identifies himself with them: what was done to them was done to Him, and the reward is eternal life in the Kingdom of God. (Mtt 25: 31-46).
3. A different practice.
3a). If people matter, and come first, and are second only to God, we have reason to rejoice, but also much to regret and to be ashamed of and repent of. Recall the history of our self-degradation and dehumanisation through invasions, conquests and wars; through blood-shed and vandalism, through enslavement and exploitation of the small and the defenceless. Let us recall with shame and pain the Nazi holocaust, the two wild wars of the last century, the dropping of atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the humiliation and plunder of the whole of Africa and of most of the continents by European aggressors, the killer dictators of Latin American who, with local resources and labour, had bought the support of the U.S. ruling class.
Returning to India, we remember with pain and shame the murder of Gandhiji; and the assassination of Indira Gandhi, and the bloody riots that followed. We cannot forget the Gujarat riots of 2002 which took the lives of 1,169 people, and injured 2,548 persons, according to official estimates. As compensation for homes destroyed, to those injured, and to the relatives of the killed, the Centre has dispensed a sum of Rs. 262.44 crore.
According to recent newspaper reports, a six year old Dalit girl was thrown into a garbage dung fire at Karali village in Mathura. In Etawa district a Dalit youth was set afire by a shopkeeper over the payment of Rs. 10. If this is disturbing and inhuman, equally inhuman and shameful is the perpetual indifference of the powers that be to the plight of Dalits; and the State’s reluctance to punish the guilty in such cases, has emboldened the so-called ‘upper castes’ to commit grievous crimes against Man frequently.
3b). We cannot forget the bloody road-rage in most cities of our land. Between January and April this year, there were 12, 953 road accidents, which killed 1, 312 persons. Last year saw 10, 907 on the National High way, and 22, 782 on other, district, roads. The year 2005 witnessed 1326 road accidents, which killed 3, 778 persons. Not long ago, a bus hit a bike from behind, throwing the rider into the gutter, and his wife, seated behind him, on the road. The bus ran over the woman, crushed her and sped away. The man came up form the gutter, held up his wife’s mangled body, and signalled to passing vehicles none of which cared to stop and help. Over–speed, intoxication, and mobile distraction are some of the causes of this fatal rage. Do people really matter? More than vanity and money?
3c). A research done by Prabhat Jha of Toronto and Rajesh Kumar of Chandigarh finds that, in the past two decades, 10 million female births have been aborted in India. Nearly 500,000 are lost annually to selective abortion. Daughters are a liability in India for socio-economic reasons, such as dowry. That implies that mothers too are a liability?!
In Delhi, crimes against women have increased in the last 10 years. The year 2007 recorded 581 cases of rape, and 815 attacks against women. The year 2006 had witnessed 713 cases of attack. 2005 saw 762 attacks. Often the victims are adolescent girls, even students.
Women’s representation in parliament is a democratic requirement. It should have become a practice from the beginning of the Republic, but it did not. Women had to agitate for it, a bill had to be prepared and years had to pass before it was introduced. Introduced only to be opposed and ridiculed. It is still hanging to democracys’ and the nation’s shame.
Of late, papers have been carrying news about a 14 year old girl student who died of AIDS. Before she died, she disclosed a secret: how a distant aunt of hers, Lissy by name, had been presenting her, most week-ends, to sex rackets in various places in return for good money which Lissy needed for the kind of life she had a fancy for. Trafficking in women and girls, including minors, is not new; nor the running of prostitution houses under the pretext of massage parlours.
All this is radical violation of human dignity, and an implied insult to one’s own mother and sister, and a denial of the sacred meaning of sexuality.
4). The Earth is the Lord’s.
4 a). In the beginning God created the earth, made human beings too, and put them, man and woman, in charge of things. God gave them power over what He had made. They were to guard and cultivate the garden in which they were placed. That gift to our first parents was meant to be a gift to their progeny as well. As God’s gift, then, the earth belongs to the human family from the first generation to the last. Nobody may make it his exclusive private property; nobody may lay exclusive claim to any part of it. For it belongs to the Human family, and is meant to meet everyone’s needs and to serve everybody’s creative potential. The earth is a table the Father has laid with exquisite foods and drinks and flowers for His human family to enjoy together and celebrate their family relationship and love. No member of the family may be denied access to this table. Nor may any one member or a few members appropriate most of it nor transfer it to their private apartments. Or, let us look at the earth as at a large loaf of Bread baked by our Heavenly Father/ Mother over the Fire in His/ Her Heart: a loaf of bread to be broken and shard in God’s family. And no one may be denied his/her rightful portion.
4b). Ancient Roman law and culture saw ownership of land as strictly private and individualist. The followers of Jesus disagreed radically, and insisted that land, and its natural resources, as God’s gift to His family, belonged to the Human family as a whole, to serve the needs and potentialities of everybody. The Acts of the Apostles, Chapters 2 and 4, report how early Christians pooled their wealth, held everything in common, met every one’s needs, and bore witness to the Lord. Paul, commended some local church communities for making collections to be sent to releave other communities suffering from famine or war; to other groups, he recommends the practice. See for instance 2 Corinthians Chapters 8 and 9.
Some early Christian thinkers and writers defended and explained the nature of the ‘Christian Commonwealth’. Here are some references and citations:
4c, 1). Clement of Alexandria (AD 150-203) rejected the prevailing Roman philosophy of absolute ownership, and insisted that material goods, gifts of God, are not destined for the luxury of a few while the many toil in poverty. Rather, wealth-producing resources are there for the use of all; “Personal independence, self-reliance, and self-sufficiency together with community are the twin goals of the use of material wealth”. Property is for the welfare of all, is for sharing, is for those in need, and for achieving self-sufficiency and community life.
4c, 2). Basil, the Great ( of Cappadocia, 330-379) was a man sensitive to the grave social injustices of his time. He saw that the majority of the people were poor, needy, dependent and powerless, insufficiently fed, clothed and sheltered. He saw a causal relation between the state of the rich and the condition of the poor. He denounced the status quo as unjust and wrong. He rejected the prevailing sacrosanct notion of ownership. He described the exploiters as thieves and robbers. He taught a new philosophy of ownership, based on the view that God was Father, Giver and Provider for all… Therefore the wealthy few must stop stealing the food-producing sources God has given for the benefit of all.
4c, 3). Ambrose of Milan ( 333-397), according to whom, the supreme Owner is God, who extends a fatherly providence for all men and women. Ownership rights, therefore, cannot be absolute; it cannot be the same as God’s right. Otherwise it would be idolatry. The earth was made to be common to all. The most basic title to property is the title of need. For the rich to share their wealth only constitutes an act of restitution. To accumulate wealth is to deprive the poor of their birthrights.
4c, 4 ). John Chrysostom (344-407), emphasizes the truth that all wealth primarily belongs to God, and stresses the solidarity of humankind. As fellow servants of the one Lord, called to a common destiny, we may not lord it over one another, but assist one another along this pilgrim path. Ownership is a dynamic function of sharing the world’s wealth to meet the requirements of a life with dignity for everyone.
4c, 5 ). Augustine of Hippo (354-430). The Roman legal theory of private property has led to the possession by a few persons of very great wealth at the price of the dispossession and impoverishment of very many others. The poor are poor because they have been deprived by a few of the earth that belongs to all. Augustine argued that such legalized right was an affront to God, who had willed all creation to be for all the people in common, according to person’s need, as a means towards our common goal in God. Augustine in fact founded a number of monastic, sharing communities.
5. What could we do today?
5 a). Let us look carefully, lovingly, at what the early Christians, our ancestors in the Faith, sought to do: the Community they founded and the Commonwealth they tried to build. Chapters 2 and 4 of the Acts of the Apostles offer us an account of the steps they took to realize their faith-inspired socio-economic vision. Could we not, should we not, attempt something similar? We have compelling motivation for it in the economics of Jesus, indicated in the Gospels: Jesus is one who emptied himself of Divine Glory and Power, took the form of a Servant, was laid at birth in a manger, lived as a laborer, was so poor that he had nowhere to lay his head. He understood his mission as bringing news which the poor could recognize as gladdening and hope-giving; He directed the rich to sell their wealth and give it to the poor, warned people against the idolatry of mammon, and against worry and anxiety about the needs of the morrow, forgetting Divine Providence who feeds the birds, clothes the flowers and gives the sun and the rain irrespective of merits. He identifies Himself with the poor, counting services done to the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the sick and the jailed as services done to His own Person, and meriting a place in the Kingdom.
5 b). There is, then, the concrete examples of believing communities in various places coming to the help of others in need in situations of drought and deprivation. The examples recorded in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 are inspiring and challenging. In Lk 16, we have the telling story of a poor beggar named Lazarus and a rich man at whose gate Lazarus lay. The rich man lived in consumerist pride and luxury, but never cared to take note of the wounded beggar at his gate or give him anything. Is it not significant that, in the story, the rich man has no personal name while the beggar has one. The rich man had dehumanized and depersonalized himself by making pomp and pride matter more than people.
5 c). The struggles of the poor and the oppressed—of the Blacks in North America, and of the Blacks, Natives and exploited groups in Latin America—developed a Theology of Liberation, having experienced the presence of the Holy Spirit at the root and heart of their resistance to oppression and of their aspiration for human dignity and community. This process has been gaining clarity, speed and strength among Dalits, Adivasis, and women in India, and among similar groups the world over. In this process with Church Synods and conferences opting, since 1965, for the poor and for justice, many base-level communities or people’s Churches were formed. These provided “space for dialogue, criticism, and political awareness. There the people’s church is growing.” This has found acceptance in other parts of the world too.
5 d). In India, we could form base-level human communities, in parishes and villages, with 20 to 30 neighborhood families forming a community, coming together once a week or at least once in a month, in order to pray, to read and reflect on inspiring texts, religious or secular; to discuss the community’s problems,; to take note of the needs and sufferings of individuals or families and plan out relief; to become a true community, owning and operating everything on a communitarian, egalitarian, co-operative basis. It should remain in regular contact with similar base communities in the region, learning from one another and helping each other. Note that we are envisioning here not so much Basic Christian Communities as Basic Human Communities. Buddhism has a beautiful tradition of equality, non-violence, community-living and sharing. Hindus have envisioned the world as a dear little family (vasudhaiva kutumbakam). Islam is a brotherhood.
6. Conclusion.
May I conclude this paper with citation from two Asian songs: one from South Korea, the other from Keralam.
6 a). The song from Keralam resounds all over the territory during the festive days of Onam. There is a legend behind the Onam celebration. Long ago, Keralam was ruled by a good king named Maveli. During his reign, there was complete equality among the people, together with perfect honesty and justice. No high and low, caste-wise or wealth-wise. No lying or cheating, no false weights and measures. And people were united and happy. The legend goes on to say that the Devas were jealous of the people and their king. They complained to Vishnu, who came down as Vamana, a dwarf, and approached Maveli, begging for three square feet of land to be measured by his own feet and meant for himself to live in. The generous king granted his request. Suddenly, the Dwarf grew to cosmic proportions, measured Maveli’s kingdom in two steps, and asked the king where the third step was to be set. Here, said the king, bowing his head. Vamana trampled the king and thrust him down to the under-world. At the pleading of the aggrieved people and of the king too, he was allowed by Vishnu to visit his beloved people once a year. This visit of Maveli is Onam which we celebrate with song and dance, new clothes and foods, and exchange of visits and gifts. The songs are about the equality and brotherhood, the justice and happiness that prevailed when Maveli was king, before the invaders who came crossing the Sindhu/ Hindu messed up everything.
6 b). Finally let us listen to Kim Chi Ha, South Korean poet and freedom fighter, celebrating food in a song:
“… an Asian whose body is broken,
but whose song and love remain unbroken;
who is held in solitary confinement,
but has the company of thousands of men and women
to whom people and dignity and reason matter more
than profit, power and capital.
His song:
rice is heaven:
as we cannot go to heaven alone
we should have rice with one another.
rice is heaven
when we eat and swallow rice
heaven dwells in our body.
rice is heaven,
yes, rice is the matter
we should eat together.”
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Fr. Dr. Samuel Rayan, S.J.
Professor
Vidyajyoti College of Theology
Delhi
(Editor Note: This article is written for the “Theology for Our Times” on Religious Fundamentalism: Ethical Challenges” Vol. 11, July 2008 )
“Daughter, your faith has healed you.” Where are today's sons and daughters?
A reflection on Religious Fundamentalism in the context of HIV and AIDS
“ My mother-in-law has kept everything separate for me - my glass, my plate, they never discriminated like this with their son. They used to eat together with him. For me, it's…. don't do this or don't touch that and even if I use a bucket to bathe, they yell - 'wash it, wash it'. They really harass me. I wish nobody comes to be in my situation and I wish nobody does this to anybody. But what can I do? My parents and brother also do not want me back. ” – A woman, aged 23, living with HIV infection, India |
For over centuries, human kind has found ways and means to create gaps within and between them as a means to gain superiority and feel superior. The Pharisee, thanking God for making him superior by word and deed, in Jesus' time, was no different. In the context of HIV and AIDS today, where are we?
Even though India underplays the enormity of the HIV and AIDS issue, the country has over 2.5 million people living with HIV infection, and spreading far and wide, deep into the traditional society. There appears to be slowing down globally, but new infections are continuing to increase in certain regions. However, HIV and AIDS remains an exceptional challenge. The response is diverse with some countries doing well on treatment but poorly on HIV prevention efforts and vice-versa. The recent UNAIDS report indicates that a number of significant challenges remain .
Most importantly, the link between religious fundamentalism and HIV and AIDS presents a greater challenge. What may appear to some as true witness of faith, may seem to another, {and most often, to those affected by HIV and AIDS} as a revocation of basic human rights. At no time has the world been challenged to look within the confines of their belief structures and find from within a place of peace in the final conclusions drawn.
When one looks back at the time of our Lord and Saviour on this earth, fundamentalism did exist. The gaps that lay between the Samaritan woman and society were fundamentalist and real. There is a tendency in the Christian theological reflections on HIV and AIDS to approach the pandemic as an issue of sexual morality. This moralistic approach reduces the challenges HIV and AIDS poses to the level of abstinence, seen as desired moralistically good behaviour. The fundamentalist leaning towards narrowing the domain of sex within marital fidelity and abstinence while negating condoms has challenged our Pharisee-an thinking on meaningful Christian thought. To expand further, would one then call any person who does not abide by this fundamentalist leaning “ Daughter ” or “ Son ”? HIV infection is most often viewed as the ‘visible proof' of the fallen – the fall from the dictates of God. This field of thought then fails to recognize people living with HIV infection and AIDS as “ Daughters ” and “ Sons ” of Jesus' context. Our theological reflections are biased with the moralistic baggage that we inherited from the classical period grounded in the social ethos of another era.
Over two decades ago, Dr. Jacob T. John from C.M.C. Vellore discussed that HIV and AIDS presented opportunities for us to clean up the systems that were decaying. The system of adopting universal precautions in hospitals and health care systems needed revamping if HIV had to be stemmed. The system of breaking the silence to dialogue with our young about sex, sexuality as a gift from God was urgently needed, once again to build life skills to combat HIV infection and AIDS. The system of claiming rights…the right of choice and the rights of gender equity, which would once again address HIV prevention. Two decades later, the ostrichian attitude regarding HIV and AIDS has just pushed fundamentalist agenda higher than the real issues at hand. Adopting universal precautions in health care settings is still not enforceable by law. Yet when a person gets infected with HIV he or she is stigmatised. Can one get more fundamentalist than this?
More than 85% of the HIV infections in India are transmitted by the sexual route. Yet several states in the country have banned sex education for the young. Sex education is a process that ironically can empower young people to make the choices to protect them from HIV infection, including the abstinence only ‘fundamentalist choice'! ABC had a great success in Uganda , where incidence of HIV came down from 16% in 1992 to 6% in 2002. Arguably, it was aided by three factors – international aid, availability of condoms and government support. However, ABC too has its limitations since it underplays gender inequality. But its strength is that it gives choice . People will have sex and it cannot be prevented by policy initiatives or religious dictates. Less than one quarter of young people in India have accurate information on how to protect themselves from HIV which, coupled with profound gender inequalities, make change in sexual attitudes and practices very difficult. India has a population of one billion, around half of whom are adults in the sexually active age group.
In this context, the ABC approach – Abstinence, Be faithful, or use a Condom – offers a series of choices for various age groups, lifestyles and cultural mores. Focusing entirely on abstinence or delayed sexual activity as a method of prevention of sexually transmitted infections, as demanded by fundamentalists of all religions, is unproven and unnatural. How does one reconcile religious dictates that fire fundamentalism within the self?
In the USA , presently, the religious right and conservative politicians strongly advocate, both domestically and in Africa , abstinence-only for unmarried adults and fidelity-only for monogamous couples. The Bush administration and Republican dominated Congress allows only this morality based agenda and ignores the condom use and treatment of STIs, most of which are curable, for funding purposes.
If Christ's presence and reaching out is synonymous with the funding of today, there is a yawning gap between being Christ-like and religious dictates. One needs to ponder on the rules that were broken during Christ's time {healing on the Sabbath day} in an attempt to reach out to people in need, whom Christ looks on as “Daughter and Son”. |
Post 9/11, the seemingly liberal USA aid allocation is hugely influenced by domestic religious fundamentalism, which impacts NGOs across the world. While NGOs depend on the USA donation, they are largely nonjudgmental about groups considered ‘immoral' by religious conservatives, such as sex workers, drug users and homosexuals. Today, such NGOs find their funds received are either conditional or altogether cut off. Developing countries are put under pressure to persuade them to gear their domestic health care programmes towards abstinence for the unmarried and fidelity in marriage, a somewhat untenable positioning in today's context.
While every nation is free to choose its state policies, it is the evangelical nature of the USA policies that causes concern. The main US aid agency, USAID, takes its cue from faith-based organisations with a rigid moralistic agenda. Such religious fundamentalism is forcing country level programs to scale down what has been the only successful single intervention so far – use of condoms once again, forcing HIV to win over people.
Facts we cannot hide from:
India has shown a decreasing trend in HIV prevalence according to national figures which halved the number of infections from 2006. However at the ground level, we have seen people living with HIV infection in remoter parts of the country, including east Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh apart from the so-called high prevalent states Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra , Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland. In response to the statistics on prevalence in India , many have voiced similar experiences.
“It is the reverse. All the NGOs I know have recorded increases in the number of people accepting help because of HIV. I am really worried that we are just burying our head in the sand over this.” Anjali Gopalan, the Naz Foundation, Delhi |
Is fundamentalism preventing or contributing to the spread of HIV and AIDS?
The so called fundamentalists of every major religion around the world, grounded in the social ethos of another era, often oppose medical and government policies designed to reduce the spread of HIV and AIDS such as use of condoms. Religious fundamentalism is cutting through scientific recourse to addressing HIV with their ‘ nothing but abstinence and fidelity can be allowed' approach. It dilutes scientific methods of addressing HIV and AIDS and diminishes the human rights of people living with HIV and AIDS.
The stranglehold of religious leaders on the simple, ordinary common people, blocks out information, services, facilities and treatment the medical community and governments provide to change behaviour. For these self appointed guardians of world morality, no sex, no drugs, no transfusion is the way forward to maintain Godly order. This antiquated moral attitude fails to move with the times or the humanness of people. HIV and AIDS are not moral issues, but a health care challenge. Anybody, anywhere can get HIV and AIDS. And every body has a right to have access to medical and social support. Period.
Religious fundamentalism in the light of HIV and AIDS is not just the domain of politicians and policies. HIV and AIDS have the unique distinction of having a self fuelled religious fundamentalism conscience within each person itself. Within every human being.
In India , the extremely feudal, conservative and sexually polarized society complicates the problem even further. Both the government and society hide behind the somewhat pathetic delusion that only people who are supposed to be on the fringe of the mainstream society such as sex workers, sexual minority and drug addicts can have HIV and AIDS. Thus just providing information and condoms to these target segments suffice, because they are somehow less equal than others.
Let's talk about Christ's' ‘daughters' and ‘sons'
The reality is, in India , HIV and AIDS are spreading through very sedate and conventional marriages where the wife is faithful, even when she knows that her husband is not. The economic dependence and inferior status of women, which includes both sex workers and wives, do not allow them to demand the use of condoms. The condition is even scarier for women widowed by husbands who died of AIDS. They are hounded out of home by both the families and abandoned, ostracized and feared by the society. For the almost 70% discordant {where one spouse is HIV positive and the other negative} couples their only recourse is fidelity but without condoms. What impact has this thinking on the state of the growing number of orphans in the world?
Sex workers are subject to violence by the police, backed by the condemnation of these unfortunate women by the political system, society and religious leaders. The very powerful stigma and rejection do not allow the affected communities to form self-help groups to spread information on protection and consolidate help. Further, the people living with HIV infection do stigmatise themselves. They berate themselves for being HIV infected and find themselves to blame - a condition no ‘daughter' or ‘son' of Christ need truly experience, if all people were Christ like.
While sharing the global fallout of institutionalized religious fundamentalism, the Indian society, in spite of few progressive laws, has the extra factor of traditional medieval attitudes towards women which denies alternative sexuality and treats women as commodities in all matters.
In Central Africa , the same ‘ oh, they are only prostitutes – who cares' or ‘oh those are only drug addicts ' attitude seems to sweep across as well. Over 20 million Africans are dead because of HIV and AIDS and yet the moralistic bent fuels apathy or fundamentalist thinking.
In South Africa like some other countries, drug abuse is in the domain of law. The stigma is so great that drug users dare not access the services and treatments designed to help them for fear of police harassment such as false criminal charges and arrest. They are subjected to mandatory HIV testing with no possibility of confidentiality. Under the circumstances, what hope is there that one would avail oneself of the facilities available for protection to reduce the spread of HIV and AIDS? Policies, religious or otherwise, that fail to take into account the different segments of African population who do not wish to be either celibate or faithful in marriage, do not seem to be forthcoming.
The long term implications of this moral hegemony can be sinister. Seizure of stocks of condoms by the Kampala government, threat to cut off funding for condom provision, insistence on abstinence by unmarried couples and underplaying use of condoms hampers education programs in Uganda and other parts of the world.
Stories of Hope:
It is most apathetic not to follow the success and the reaching out experiences of countries that have striven to meaningfully reach out to stem HIV scientifically . A few of these experiences are briefly cited here.
In the Netherlands the government has a refreshingly strong support system for the rights of the drug users. Sex work is legalized and sex workers have the right to health care. What is interesting to note is that more people are empowered to make the choices that affirm their right to a life with dignity.
In Canada the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU), which originated in a 10 square block marginalised area of Vancouver which witnessed 400 deaths of drug users per year from AIDS or overdose, has truly changed the way drug users are perceived in the community.
In Uganda the authorities introduced the unique religion-based ABC program, Abstinence, Be faithful, use Condom , extraordinarily successful on account of the government aggressively destigmatizing HIV and AIDS by discussing it in all public fora such as schools, public meetings and workplace and making all materials and services available openly . The immediate reaction, even before condoms could be made widely available, was sharp reduction in number of sexual partners. However, the same model, tried in other African countries, did not work, presumably due to lack of openness and government commitment.
Iran, presumably a theocratic state, has agreed to distribute disposable needles to drug users to slow down the spread of HIV infection Iran recognizes that prevention of drug addiction and prevention of HIV are two different issues. They look at people with a substance abuse problem as people with rights to HIV prevention..
Brazil refused a $40 million US aid in May 2005 because it refused to condemn sex work, expected by the US funding agencies. The $15 billion US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) allocated by the US Congress for overseas projects, requires that one third of the fund should be utilized for ‘abstinence until marriage' program. Brazil found it unacceptable.
"Daughter!".
" Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease " ( Mk 5: 34 ) |
Gender equity remains beautiful documents on paper with less flesh in them, other than words. In India , poverty, poor medical and educational systems, gender inequality and accelerate the epidemic's progress from the high risk groups to the general population. It is possible that the vulnerable communities can be allowed the full benefits of the medical and official services and equality before law, without the society going to pieces. If the governments and religious groups do not commit themselves to rise beyond religious fundamentalism to address the people-issues related to HIV and AIDS at the earliest, to undo the demonisation of drug users, sex workers and sexual minorities, it will reverse the stemming of HIV infection, one of the Millennium Development Goals.
“ Nobody will come near me, eat with me in the canteen, nobody will want to work with me, I am an outcast here. ” - HIV positive man, aged 27, India |
How can one reconcile these words to that of the Prophet Jonah: " I called to the Lord, out of my distress, and He answered me . You brought up my life from the pit. When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord; and my prayer came to thee. With the voice of thanksgiving, I will sacrifice to thee. Deliverance belongs to thee."
For true deliverance to belong to “Thee”, the primary shift that needs to happen in the theological reflections on HIV and AIDS is a shift in our epistemology: the vantage point from which we look at the issue. A relevant theology of HIV and AIDS in India should start from the experiences of the people living with HIV infection and AIDS {PLHA}. If they are accorded the space with us as “Sons' and “daughters' of God, deliverance is not just possible but becomes visible.
When we construct theological reflections from the perspectives of the PLHA, it gives us a new understanding of the causes of the pandemic. That will lead us to new discernments of how gender, and socio-economic factors cause the spread of HIV and AIDS. A simplistic moralistic analysis, in fact, deepens the wounds of the PLHA. Theological reflections on HIV and AIDS from the perspective of the PLHA demand from us a new discernment of the causes of the pandemic.
“ There is an almost hysterical kind of fear…at all levels, starting from the humblest, the sweeper or the ward boy, up to the heads of departments, which makes them pathologically scared of having to deal with an HIV-positive patient. Wherever they have an HIV patient, the responses are shameful.” - A retired senior doctor from a public hospital, currently working in a private hospital, India |
The time has come to show the courage of Moses to introspect within self? Is my religious leaning distancing people or making them feel like ‘son's and ‘daughters' of God? Is the church's collective thinking inclusive for all people affected with HIV infection and AIDS to live life with the dignity accorded by the very fact we are human?
“Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony (John 4:39 ) |
Is the way we approach people with HIV and AIDS similar to the way Christ approached the Samaritan woman such that, it empowers, it leads and it builds a binding loving society of human beings working in communion to address HIV and AIDS. Religious fundamentalism has no part in such a vision.
Edwina Pereira and Sunanda Nag, INSA India, 5/1 Benson Cross Road, Benson Town, Bangalore 560046
For more information and assistance on developing policies related to HIV and AIDS contact INSA India Email insaind@gmail.com or insaind@airtelmail.in . Website: www.insa-india.org.in
