Easter is upon us but Christian or not, 
we should all be sympathetic towards those afflicted with one of the world’s most devastating disease – scourges in recent history – HIV/AIDS Why? Because whether the afflicted victims brought the “sentence” upon themselves by being wanton, unprotected or promiscuous – OR NOT, the world-wide disease can have an impact on us. Yes, we who are safe or feel so, might feel the indirect effects in the work-force, in social life, on national budgets and so on, when those we know, or just see, are affected. HIV/AIDS can indeed change all our life styles and behaviours – whether we are affected, infected, or not.
Led by the National Aids Prevention Secretariat (NAPS) and the GUM Clinic –in Georgetown and many worthy Non-Governmental Organisations, like Lifeline Counselling, the Responsible Parenthood Association, now throughout the country, let it be known that poor Guyana seems to be leading a spirited and structured charge against this virus. However, the challenges can be enormous, beginning with the indifference, the fears, the ignorance born of in-bred traditional attitudes and myths.
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IGNORANCE, INTOLERANCE, SUPERSTITION
Growing up with my mixed-race grandmother amongst the working-class of Georgetown, even I was infected, at an early age, with their sense of shame, scorn, ignorance and intolerance with respect to victims of particular disease and illnesses. I understand now that it was the lack of knowledge and myths of the times – the forties to sixties – that made my grandmother, her legion of old-lady friends, even male nurses, teachers and reasonably – otherwise “educated” folks, develop certain attitudes of lament, rebuke and condemnation for poor-sinners who developed LEPROSY, TUBERCULOSIS and CANCER, for example. My-my! Leprosy was christened “COCOBEH: by the ignorant and the silly – a creole word with origins which perhaps did have meanings of some sinful deformity of a disease. Never mind the heroic efforts and loving care of Dr. Rose in whose Mahaica hospital patients – those dreaded “lepers” – were isolated. Then, perhaps like victims of AIDS today, people who contracted TUBERCULOSIS were also regarded as unfortunates fit only to be “quarantined” at the West Demerara Best Sanatorium, such as it was in those days. Relatives or friends with some compassion took “orange” for those at the “Best”, cursed with “cough”.
It was so easy to be shunned. Or to shun.
I grew into teen-hood to learn thereafter of another scourge called “De Big One” – CANCER. So little was known of the various cancers then. Relatives reacted with, yes, shock and awe. Prepared to accept without a fight, the inevitable demise of their patient, after some “wasting away”, STD’s were actually the result of immorality and promiscuity but were relatively “normal” – “leaks”, syphilis and, Heaven forbid, gonorrhoea. Not so cancer or later, HERPES – the apparent fore-runner of AIDS.
I later realized that one source of my grandmother’s generation’s rebuke, suspicion and superstition surrounding these disease was none other than the Christian Holy Bible! After all, God’s wrath, his punishment for the sins of some, was to visit them with the curse of leprosy. Like AIDS today, many hold fast that Divine punishment is being meted out for sins of the unholy.
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Since the Holy Bible and Biblical at
titudes once fostered mis-understandings about diseases, let’s use this Easter to demonstrate more COMPASSION.
Visit someone with HIV; advise and teach; counsel and commiserate without being pitiful. Offer practical assistance to the afflicted.
There are HARRY’S , INGA’S AND VIRGIES (HIV) all around us. Treatment in Guyana is easily accessible. Local and American Organisations devoted counselling and treatment are many.
One battle, however, is to remove THE STIGMA from the minds of the ignorant and the intolerant. More work needs to done at this level. Until all realise that harry, Inga and/or Virgie could be our own loved on(s) – or could be US!
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