Becoming human, of course, is the title of a book by Jean Vanier, the founder of L'Arche homes for the disabled. But it is also a humble cry to remember that for most of our lives, we ourselves in fact embody that vulnerable other, dependant on others to provide for our needs.
I couldn't help but reflect on this today. Today is an age where we throw away people, satisfied to blame those who land on the streets or in shelters with "bad lifestyle choices" and haughtily assume that we, the deserving, will never fall to that level.
I'll never forget what one of my sociology teachers said quietly once, after a heated discussion about poverty:
"We're all just one paycheque away from poverty."
One day you or I could get an accident, become disabled, and never work again.
We could lose our job in a recession, and be caught between mortgage and car payments.
We are all just one paycheque away from poverty.
And yet, for some reason, we are happy to blame the other when personal strength and ability fail.
"If he would just get his act together, he could make it" we say.
"If only she had got an education, she wouldn't be struggling like this" we say, blaming the individual for the cruel forces of a society unwilling to take care of its vulnerable and weak.
Becoming human means remembering those times when we too, were unable to care for ourselves. When we were young. When we get old and frail. And when, for whatever reason, our paycheques fall through the cracks or just can't keep up with the most essential things of life; rent and food.
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Religion and HIV/AIDS
It was my first time in a church in South Africa. I didn't know what to expect.
A trangendered woman stepped up to the pulpit and read an opening scripture from the Bible.
The worship leader walked to the front and said "If you're a lesbian,if you're gay, if you're bisexual, if you're transgender, you're welcome here! If you have HIV or AIDS you are welcome here! Everyone is welcome here."
That was when I began to start feeling like I could make this my home church.
I've already illustrated the damage that extremist and right-wing Christianity can do to when highly funded (and often foreign) religious groups attempt to influence state policies. But the fact remains that in the Majority world, religion-- whether Christianity, Islam, or Buddhism-- is adhered to at least in name by the majority of the population. In other words, interventions to combat HIV/AIDS will not be succesful if they are running contrary to widely held and respected religious norms of the country in which they are operating.
In fact, in the majority world it may well be that the broad-based popularity of religious institutions, the social and physical infrastructure, and the capability for both mass education and mass health outreaches make religious institutions uniquely capable of comnatting HIV/AIDS in locations where the road ends and hospitals, clinics, and educated social workers don't exist.
Examples of such alliances do exist. In Papua New Guinea, non profit initiatives educate and work with pastors and other church leaders to spread the word on HIV prevention through the social networks that only the church has. And they have been succesful in spreading accurate information and stemming the spread of the virus through this method. While unusual, this example may be one that can pave the road for using the extensive networks that religion have in order to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS.
I found in my time at Metro Evangelical Services in Johannesburg that religion is capable of expanding into non-traditional roles to help prevent HIV. M.E.S. might be one of the only organisations I know of where you can get preached to on the street about Christianity on one hand, and about the importance of wearing condoms on the other-- and all under the umbrella of one organisation, M.E.S. The pastors that were sent to buildings and networks in churches knew where they could refer people who were concerned about their status and to get accurate information.
There is much to learn about religious-health alliances. But without using the networks that already exist in countries to combat HIV/AIDS, and assuming their moral authority, it will be much more costly, expensive, and ineffective to try and combat HIV/AIDS.
A trangendered woman stepped up to the pulpit and read an opening scripture from the Bible.
The worship leader walked to the front and said "If you're a lesbian,if you're gay, if you're bisexual, if you're transgender, you're welcome here! If you have HIV or AIDS you are welcome here! Everyone is welcome here."
That was when I began to start feeling like I could make this my home church.
I've already illustrated the damage that extremist and right-wing Christianity can do to when highly funded (and often foreign) religious groups attempt to influence state policies. But the fact remains that in the Majority world, religion-- whether Christianity, Islam, or Buddhism-- is adhered to at least in name by the majority of the population. In other words, interventions to combat HIV/AIDS will not be succesful if they are running contrary to widely held and respected religious norms of the country in which they are operating.
In fact, in the majority world it may well be that the broad-based popularity of religious institutions, the social and physical infrastructure, and the capability for both mass education and mass health outreaches make religious institutions uniquely capable of comnatting HIV/AIDS in locations where the road ends and hospitals, clinics, and educated social workers don't exist.
Examples of such alliances do exist. In Papua New Guinea, non profit initiatives educate and work with pastors and other church leaders to spread the word on HIV prevention through the social networks that only the church has. And they have been succesful in spreading accurate information and stemming the spread of the virus through this method. While unusual, this example may be one that can pave the road for using the extensive networks that religion have in order to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS.
I found in my time at Metro Evangelical Services in Johannesburg that religion is capable of expanding into non-traditional roles to help prevent HIV. M.E.S. might be one of the only organisations I know of where you can get preached to on the street about Christianity on one hand, and about the importance of wearing condoms on the other-- and all under the umbrella of one organisation, M.E.S. The pastors that were sent to buildings and networks in churches knew where they could refer people who were concerned about their status and to get accurate information.
There is much to learn about religious-health alliances. But without using the networks that already exist in countries to combat HIV/AIDS, and assuming their moral authority, it will be much more costly, expensive, and ineffective to try and combat HIV/AIDS.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Choices choices?
"HIV/AIDS can be prevented with the proper lifestyle"
"If you are faithful or abstinent, you won't get HIV"
Do these messages sound familiar? Pop culture-- funded and abetted by USAID's so called ABC funding criteria that only gives money to organisations that encourage Abstinence, Being faithful and Condoms (in that order)-- puppet these sayings again and again as if they have legitimacy for women's lives across incredeibly diverse cultures and countries all over the world.
When I heard Dr. Carr asking us at the OHTN conference if people from various cultures really have the choices this kind of message implies, I immediately thought of some of my friends in South Africa. My friend "Karabo," as we'll call her, confided in me that she wasn't certain if her fiance was being faithful to her.
"Karabo!" I said, immediately concerned, "If you're not sure that he's being faithful to you, you have to use condoms."
"Girl," she sighed, "I can't. I've dated him since we were both in high school. If I start asking him to use condoms now he will wonder why. He'll think I'm not being faithful."
This kind of situation is exactly what Dr. Carr is referring to.
The spread of the HIV/AIDS virus is more than a series of bad "lifestyle choices" by people across the globe. Rather, HIV/AIDS reveals people's vulnerability and their lack of power much more than it does their personal choices.
Take the example of the countless women who are victims of rape in conflict zones. HIV/AIDS in this situation can hardly be seen as a consequence of lifestyle. Instead, it shows the lack of respect for women's rights that soldiers and indeed the entire institution of revolutionary groups have. The spread of HIV/AIDS through rape also highlights the vulnerability of certain women more than others; those women that can not escape conflict zones when war breaks out often have less money, and most certainly lack the protection of a strong state system that could protect them.
The issues surrounding HIV/AIDS are complex. It is not fair to blame people who have the virus with poor lifestyle choices. More relevant is to examine the factors that have created such a vulnerability to contracting the virus, and to work on destroying these disempowering structures.
"If you are faithful or abstinent, you won't get HIV"
Do these messages sound familiar? Pop culture-- funded and abetted by USAID's so called ABC funding criteria that only gives money to organisations that encourage Abstinence, Being faithful and Condoms (in that order)-- puppet these sayings again and again as if they have legitimacy for women's lives across incredeibly diverse cultures and countries all over the world.
When I heard Dr. Carr asking us at the OHTN conference if people from various cultures really have the choices this kind of message implies, I immediately thought of some of my friends in South Africa. My friend "Karabo," as we'll call her, confided in me that she wasn't certain if her fiance was being faithful to her.
"Karabo!" I said, immediately concerned, "If you're not sure that he's being faithful to you, you have to use condoms."
"Girl," she sighed, "I can't. I've dated him since we were both in high school. If I start asking him to use condoms now he will wonder why. He'll think I'm not being faithful."
This kind of situation is exactly what Dr. Carr is referring to.
The spread of the HIV/AIDS virus is more than a series of bad "lifestyle choices" by people across the globe. Rather, HIV/AIDS reveals people's vulnerability and their lack of power much more than it does their personal choices.
Take the example of the countless women who are victims of rape in conflict zones. HIV/AIDS in this situation can hardly be seen as a consequence of lifestyle. Instead, it shows the lack of respect for women's rights that soldiers and indeed the entire institution of revolutionary groups have. The spread of HIV/AIDS through rape also highlights the vulnerability of certain women more than others; those women that can not escape conflict zones when war breaks out often have less money, and most certainly lack the protection of a strong state system that could protect them.
The issues surrounding HIV/AIDS are complex. It is not fair to blame people who have the virus with poor lifestyle choices. More relevant is to examine the factors that have created such a vulnerability to contracting the virus, and to work on destroying these disempowering structures.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Uganda's anti homosexuality bill
It's hard to describe to people who have never lived anywhere other than Canada what it means not to have human rights. It's hard to describe what it means when I say "I liked living in Africa, but I'm glad to be back in Canada because I really appreciate having rights as a woman." It's hard for others to understand what I mean when I say "the laws were there but the culture was against women's and LGBTQ rights."
Maybe it isn't fair to refer to these things as cultural. After all, lesbian woman in South Africa before colonisation used to be able to pay dowry and marry a woman, so long as they did so inside of certain specific cultural norms. It was assumed these marriages weren't sexual in nature-- but looking back can we really be sure of that?
Maybe instead of culture, I have to pin the blame on homophobia squarely on the history of colonisation and Christianity.
Living under a colonial dictatorship for more than a hundred years has given many places in the world a complex relationship to authority and power that is less apparent in Canadian society. When I asked one of my friends if South Africa would ever have a woman president he laughed and said,
“No. I can’t have a woman above me. No man in this country wants to have a woman above him!”
This viewpoint on power and relationships between people as essentially unequal- either you have it and I don't, or I have it and you don't- fuels the continuing lack of women's empowerment in countries suffering from a history of colonisation and dictatorship.
A more recent and stinging trend is taking place in the halls of religion, particularly Christianity. Right wing advocacy groups, having been discredited in Canada (less so in the United States) find themselves turning to other countries in the world to try and shape political policies. This, according to Dr. Robert Carr, are the highly funded powers behind Uganda's so called anti-homosexuality bill; not traditional cultures or beliefs, but powerful Christian groups from Canada and the United States.
This bill would imprison LGBTQ people for life, or kill them. It would send parents to prison for not reporting their children for three years; and the same to teachers. A landlord who gives housing to suspected LGBTQ people could face 7 years of imprisonment.
These are the laws that right wing groups from Canada and the United States have imposed on other soverign countries. While human rights are seen as a Western imposition on other cultures, in this case isn’t lack of human rights an imposition as well?
People, if you feel the way I do about these proposals you will support the movement against these laws in Uganda.
.....
Contacts to protest... (from facebook group)
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=198541255168&v=info
Read the bill: http://wthrockmorton.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/anti-homosexuality-bill-2009.pdf
President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni
State House Nakasero
email: info@statehouse.go.ug
Prime Minister Apollo Nsibambi
email: ps@opm.go.ug
Speaker of the Parliament
Edward Ssekandi Kiwanuka
email: speaker@parliament.go.ug
Minister of Gender, Labour, and Social Affairs Honorable Opio Gabriel
email: ps@mglsd.go.ug
Chair of the Uganda Human Rights Commission
Med Kaggwa
email: uhrc@uhrc.ug
Directorate for Ethics and Integrity
email: info@dei.go.ug
Chair of the Uganda Diplomatic Human Rights Working Groups
Mathisen Gørild
email: gorild.mathisen@mfa.no
Please also send a copy to:
Ambassador to the Republic of Uganda Embassy of the United States of America
Jerry P. Lanier
email: kampalawebcontact@state.gov
Christian pastors in Uganda:
Martin Ssempa
ssempam@gmail.com
Stephen Langa
stephenlanga@yahoo.com
You may contact Watato Church (formerly Kampala Pentecostal Church and closely associated with both Ssempa and Langa) at connect@watotochurch.com.
Maybe it isn't fair to refer to these things as cultural. After all, lesbian woman in South Africa before colonisation used to be able to pay dowry and marry a woman, so long as they did so inside of certain specific cultural norms. It was assumed these marriages weren't sexual in nature-- but looking back can we really be sure of that?
Maybe instead of culture, I have to pin the blame on homophobia squarely on the history of colonisation and Christianity.
Living under a colonial dictatorship for more than a hundred years has given many places in the world a complex relationship to authority and power that is less apparent in Canadian society. When I asked one of my friends if South Africa would ever have a woman president he laughed and said,
“No. I can’t have a woman above me. No man in this country wants to have a woman above him!”
This viewpoint on power and relationships between people as essentially unequal- either you have it and I don't, or I have it and you don't- fuels the continuing lack of women's empowerment in countries suffering from a history of colonisation and dictatorship.
A more recent and stinging trend is taking place in the halls of religion, particularly Christianity. Right wing advocacy groups, having been discredited in Canada (less so in the United States) find themselves turning to other countries in the world to try and shape political policies. This, according to Dr. Robert Carr, are the highly funded powers behind Uganda's so called anti-homosexuality bill; not traditional cultures or beliefs, but powerful Christian groups from Canada and the United States.
This bill would imprison LGBTQ people for life, or kill them. It would send parents to prison for not reporting their children for three years; and the same to teachers. A landlord who gives housing to suspected LGBTQ people could face 7 years of imprisonment.
These are the laws that right wing groups from Canada and the United States have imposed on other soverign countries. While human rights are seen as a Western imposition on other cultures, in this case isn’t lack of human rights an imposition as well?
People, if you feel the way I do about these proposals you will support the movement against these laws in Uganda.
.....
Contacts to protest... (from facebook group)
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=198541255168&v=info
Read the bill: http://wthrockmorton.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/anti-homosexuality-bill-2009.pdf
President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni
State House Nakasero
email: info@statehouse.go.ug
Prime Minister Apollo Nsibambi
email: ps@opm.go.ug
Speaker of the Parliament
Edward Ssekandi Kiwanuka
email: speaker@parliament.go.ug
Minister of Gender, Labour, and Social Affairs Honorable Opio Gabriel
email: ps@mglsd.go.ug
Chair of the Uganda Human Rights Commission
Med Kaggwa
email: uhrc@uhrc.ug
Directorate for Ethics and Integrity
email: info@dei.go.ug
Chair of the Uganda Diplomatic Human Rights Working Groups
Mathisen Gørild
email: gorild.mathisen@mfa.no
Please also send a copy to:
Ambassador to the Republic of Uganda Embassy of the United States of America
Jerry P. Lanier
email: kampalawebcontact@state.gov
Christian pastors in Uganda:
Martin Ssempa
ssempam@gmail.com
Stephen Langa
stephenlanga@yahoo.com
You may contact Watato Church (formerly Kampala Pentecostal Church and closely associated with both Ssempa and Langa) at connect@watotochurch.com.
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