Pope Aids the Spread of AIDS in Africa, Again

If anyone sans a large hat were to pontificate that AIDS “cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems”, one would promptly regard them as a delusional imbecile, not fit for public consumption.

Yet when Pope ‘wasting humans is better than wasting cum’ Benedict chastises that the scourge of HIV/AIDS is a consequence of “a contraception mentality”, an estimated 400 million worldwide Catholics (130 million in Africa) adhere exactly to the principle.

Officially, the only form of birth control permitted by the church is abstinence (with the belief that all licit sexual acts must be open to procreation); as was echoed by previous Popes’ John Paul II, John Paul I and Paul IV.

Africa, with just over 12% of the world’s population, is estimated to have more than 60% of the some 30 million worldwide AIDS-infected population.

Of those estimated 18 million Africans infected with AIDS, approximately 2 million died in 2008, with figures on the increase.

Yet as the African Catholic numbers expand, vying for competition from Islam (40%) and other Christian denominations (48% including Catholics), the Pope maintains his dangerously orthodox contraband for condoms and contraception; contentiously contributing to the condoning of contamination.

In March 2009, the pontiff while addressing bishops from South Africa, Botswana, Swaziland, Namibia and Lesotho at the Vatican said “the traditional teaching of the church has proven to be the only failsafe way to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS” (there are presumably statistics to support this claim, but Benedict failed to expound them).

In 2008 the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) published a paper urging a range of methods to fight AIDS.

“For many in Africa and Asia, sex is often the only commodity people have to exchange for food, school fees, exam results, employment or survival itself in situations of violence”, the paper said.

“Any strategy that enables a person to move from a higher risk towards the lower end of the continuum, CAFOD believes, is a valid risk reduction strategy”.

But this directly contradicts the good words of the Pope in his recent African address. According to Benedict, apparently Africans should, as long as they’re on their knees, say a silent prayer to the almighty while they’re ingesting a mouthful of HIV/AIDS infected semen, and all will be right.

Eggs Benedict has refuted claims that his continued hard-line stance on forbidding the use of contraceptive measures is facing opposition from within the church stating, “The myth of my solitude makes me laugh”.

The Roman Catholic Church has received widespread criticism on this issue from moderate Catholics and health advocate groups alike, of whom argue that the church is grossly out of touch with modern science and medical opinion.

It has been a turbulent year for Mr. Benedict, who has attracted criticism when in January 2009 he lifted of the excommunication of the Holocaust-denying bishop Bishop Richard Williamson, who was censured in 1988 by Pope John Paul II.

 

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Veiled Motives

The death threat that was found stabbed into the bullet ravaged carcass of film producer Theo Van Gogh (distant relative of the famous artist) vowed the same fate for writer, former Dutch parliamentarian and womens’ rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

The 2004 short film Submission (written by Ali and directed by Van Gogh – available on Google Video) created a storm of controversy, criticizing a range of alleged fundamentalist Islamic doctrines from ‘honor killings’, spousal abuse, misogyny to the wearing of the traditional Hijab (veil).

It is no wonder that Ali now lives with constant security presence provided by the Dutch government.

Ali, a Somalian expatriate and outspoken critic of her former faith, states that the Islamic belief has “certain characteristics that can coexist with Western democracy”.

She says that “as a Muslim I was taught to be generous, to be hospitable, to be kind to the elderly and to be kind to the poor”.

She goes on however to argue that “the basic tenets of Islam and the basic tenets of Western liberal democracies are incompatible. Islam fails to recognise secularity or the separation of church and State.  Women are subordinate. In Islam, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are things that you can pursue when you go to heaven but you have to die first because life on earth is just a passage and you observe certain rules and if you don’t observe those rules you’re not considered a Muslim”.

She also criticizes the treatment of homosexuals, or at least “the idea that they are not allowed to live and should either be banished or killed. Now, in liberal societies these are values that are radically different from what Islam preaches.

Facing a backlash from not only fundamentalist Islam, outrage from moderate Muslims is similarly heated.

Careful not to generalize though, Ali makes a distinction between Muslims and the Islam faith itself: “Muslims are individuals and they are varied. You will find some of them are radical and some of them are moderate and some do not practice the religion at all.  Islam as a doctrine, as a body of ideas, as a belief- means submission to the will of Allah”.

In theocracic Iran, Islamic law (Shari’a) dictates that women are not allowed outside without the custom Hijab (veil).

She doesn’t believe that Western governments should prevent Muslim women from wearing Hijab in public, as was suggested by some in recent times, particularly in the wake of 9/11, rather she elucidates that: “We should not be debating the clothe itself but what it stands for, the sexual morality and based on morality that says men cannot restrain themselves sexually.They are like wild dogs and we women are like pieces of tempting meat and if we do not want to put society into chaos, then we should ideally stay behind closed doors and if it’s necessary for us to go outside of the house, then we need to veil ourselves”.

But Ali points out that the Hijab is just the tip of the iceberg, particularly in Iran and Saudi Arabia, citing inequalities in custody, divorce, and being able to study for any field or enter any occupation as further disparities

She also vehemently challenges the barbaric act of female circumcision, which Amnesty International estimates some 2 million procedures commence every year, typically found in African communities.

As the 2000s marked anew chapter in Western/ Islamic relations and two destructive wars, leaving more than 100,000 civillian deaths and more than a tenth of that figure in Western troop fatalities (Red Cross, 2008), the issue of intergrating faith and democracy is a challenge that is sure to remain a focal point for politicians and human-rights activists alike.

Ali, an atheist, said she lost her faith while sitting in an Italian restaurant in May 2002, drinking a glass of wine, “I asked myself: Why should I burn in hell just because I’m drinking this? But what prompted me even more was the fact that the killers of 9/11 all believed in the same God I believed in”.

 

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Not Out of the Woods Yet, but Early Signs of Bubble Blowing

The recent global financial crisis has reignited the engines of the Keynesian designed “debt trucks”.

It seems that governments’ fiscal policies, post-New Deal, post-Neoliberal deal, are back to where they started – dishing out public loot to push start the spluttering global economy, and in America’s case – bailing out failed corporations.

In Australia, so far the trucks have been delivering, narrowly evading a technical recession; being the only developed nation to stay in the black.

But after the stimulus packages have dried up and governments seek to cut back on expenditures, are we destined to relapse into an era of Neo-Neoliberalism?

In the wake of the GFC, the left has hinted at structural reforms, such as curbing high-end remuneration and scaling back the breadth of US banking firms.

So far the calls have gone largely unanswered.

The current indignation felt by the far-left is similar to its criticism after Roosevelt’s New Deal measures, arguing that it let slip the opportunity to radically reform American capitalism.

Many historians in fact acknowledge that the New Deal did not substantially alter the distribution of power within the US system.

The right wants tighter government fiscal responsibility, such as curbing government spending and introducing tax cuts, a linchpin of recent ‘conservative’ policy.

In some ways Neoliberal economic policies were successful. In the UK, inflation plummeted from 22 percent at its height in 1979, to under 5 percent by the end of the 1980s.  Similarly, the US dropped from 9 percent inflation in 1980 to 5 percent in 1988.

But by the end of the 1980s, the UK saw its unemployment rate double (from 5% in 1980 to 10% in 1987, tapering off at 7% in 1990).

At the same time, the US was entrenched in an increasing trade deficit, and perhaps counter-intuitively, unprecedented levels of foreign and national debt.  The once creditor US became the global debtor superpower.

Back to the recent crisis, and our international bodies have been as equally inept at offering any real structural reforms.

The G20 meetings in mid 2009 spawned no real changes to banking sector regulation and economic restructuring.  They, after all, reflect the economic interests of the nations that partake in them.

Likewise, the IMF, not only failed to foresee the GFC, but has since, somewhat predictably, offered little advice to nations concerning economic reform.

Save for a cataclysmic meltdown, it seems that for the moment at least, that the status quo will be maintained.  “Free market” capitalism will prevail, and we can resume our favourite pastime of blowing bubbles, crying when they burst, and yelling at each other as to the best way of dealing with the mess.

 

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The Progressive Christian (sic)

Recently an undisclosed magazine published an article written by a pro-choice, pro-gay-marriage, “progressive Christian” (sic), Raffaele *****, who heralded:

“I am a Christian, and guess what I believe that abortion should be legal, that same sex couples should have equal rights, that they should be allowed to marry, that the death penalty is immoral in all circumstances… To be Christian, to have a religious belief, need not necessarily invoke images of conservatism, intolerance, homophobia, and the list goes on.

It may seem fair to ignore the Judeo-Christian bibles’ explicit condemnation of abortion, homosexuality, or its endorsement of slavery, given that modern civilization runs on the principles of democracy, personal freedom and liberty.

But slavery and abortion aren’t really directly mentioned in the New Testament – the Old Testament and Torah aren’t really relevant to the modern “progressive Christian”.

The idea of one god started with the Torah.

The Torah declared that this one god is all loving, merciful, yet vengeful – like a drunk Republican at Christmas.  The Torah also makes repugnant claims on all sorts of antiquated ‘ethical’ matters – male foreskin anyone?

But the Old Testament, followed by its successive best seller, the sexier, New Testament, gave us: hell, devil(s), immaculate cum, the resurrection and all manner of mythical/miraculous/misogynistic rhetoric.

Surely then, if the “progressive Christian” disregards the various scriptural passages that condemns homosexuality in the New Testament, or abortion in the Old, than it follows that one should also question the very ideas of god(s) and an afterlife.

But surely hard-line religious orthodoxy is to blame for the heinous ‘misinterpretations’ of the holy texts?

The “progressive religious’” selective adoption/adaption of canons from the ‘holy’ texts that they deem still relevant (e.g. a ‘personal god’), further ensures hypocrisy, distortion and absurdity.  At least the hard-liners don’t discriminate which texts they utilize for grounds to discriminate.

So why then do “progressive” religious followers take the holy texts’ monotheistic and afterlife canons as givens, but disregard most biblical stories as nothing more than poetic metaphors or quasi-moralistic allegories?

Of course it depends on one’s nature/ nurture situation.  Plus, heaven sounds pretty sweet!

It’s just a shame that the monotheistic god couldn’t speak Aboriginal dialects or Quechuan (Incan), providing separate anecdotal corroboration of ‘his’ omnipresence.

Raffaele argues, “So next time somebody says that they are a Christian, and thus must be against gay marriage or abortion, do not be afraid to question them.

He might have a point that Christians face stigma from rational persons’ perceptions of the religious’ revel for mythical dogma, but I am glad to watch religion’s reign of control, anti-rationalism, anti-intellectualism and fear-mongering unravel like the metaphorical altar boy’s ecclesiastical robe.

 

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