Campaigns
Deadlier Than AIDS By Ugochukwu
Ejinkeonye Now,
assuming you wake up tomorrow morning and hear that an effective, dully
tested and proven curative and even preventive drug for HIV/AIDS is now
available in every chemist shop, what would be your first reaction? Or
rather, do you think that we should just celebrate profusely, and then
draw with immense relief a huge curtain against a horrible scourge that
has for some years now distinguished itself as the worst and most
traumatic nightmare of this part of the world, aside poverty,
irresponsible leadership and corruption? I
think we should be wary of oversimplifying the whole matter. For me, if
a vaccine is found for HIV/AIDS today, it will now be time to brace up
for the real, arduous work, more herculean, and more complicated than
the search for a cure for the killer disease. All that the deadly virus
needs to die in a person may just be some doses of an efficacious drug
anytime one is discovered, and the victim would just be free. But how
long will it take to recover society from the deep moral chasm into
which it has been plunged by desperate and clearly misguided
campaigners? Just
the other day, I stumbled on one of those so called HIV/AIDS awareness
programmes on TV, and there was this totally revolting advert which in
my opinion aptly distinguished itself as a classic example of child
abuse:
A very young boy
of about ten or nine, or even eight, barged into a chemist shop,
desperation and
indecent enthusiasm written all over him. He wanted to buy
something whose name he was either totally unfamiliar with, or had
forgotten entirely.
He battled to describe the item to the medicine seller (a popular
actor). His palpable impatience was so sickening as he desperately asked
the medicine seller about the “thing used to cover…”,
“ the rubber” or “ the balloon”…, I
can’t really remember the finer details now. But the boy also
tried to use gestures to indicate the function of what he was looking
for. Eventually, with near paternal indulgence, the medicine seller came
to his rescue. He fished out a pack of condom and asked the boy whether
that was what he was looking for. And with
sickening ecstasy, the boy snatched the condom from him and
rushed out of the shop with demonic speed. And in what appeared like an
afterthought, the medicine seller shouted after the boy, when he had
sped well past earshot: “Don’t rush into sex-o!” Now
what will you call this? A deadly, devastating
poison carefully packaged to destroy the moral fibre of today’s
kids or what? Just what is this advert intended to achieve? To ruin or
to recover? It is scary to note that other “AIDS awareness” adverts
like this abound! I think we have a serious problem in our hands now,
and unless we make haste now to sit down to determine, as Achebe would
say, where the rain began to beat us, we would just wake up one day when
it is too late and things have gone out hand to find ourselves in a deep
gully, having been long swept away by a great, destructive flood. And
then, we would wonder in utter helplessness how we found ourselves in
such an irredeemable
pass. It is only a foolish people that would sacrifice their
moral health to safeguard their physical health. I insist that both are
not in any way mutually exclusive. Indeed,
I have serious reservations about the motives and intentions of majority
of these AIDS activists swarming the whole place. A number of years ago,
one beautiful Filipino girl announced that she had tested positive to
HIV and voluntarily joined forces with AIDS awareness workers to
“combat the disease” in several cities and countries. At several
well-attended HIV/AIDS concerts, she would mount the stage in her
characteristic skimpy skirts and revealing blouses to the great
admiration of the audience. The audience always went wild with her
charm, beauty and exposed flesh, as she passionately “spread the
message of AIDS” to enthusiastic listeners. Indeed, she was such a
major attraction at the shows. But after several months, and before it
could be discovered that this young girl had her own evil agenda, she
had lured several men into fornication, including some of her fellow
AIDS combatants! And the world was scandalized. Decent
society should really be worried that men and women whose motives are
less than noble are let loose on us, a clear and present danger to the
impressionable minds of our younger ones. While they claim to combat a
dangerous disease, they
end up re-infecting society
with
an even
deadlier
ailment, the moral breakdown in society, whose cure may never be
found till doomsday! I am seriously worried because the boundless
proliferation of these AIDS bodies automatically translates to a
multiplication of the problems we are bemoaning here. Unfortunately,
an intimidated society is left helpless, unable to formulate an
appropriate response. The reason is that even the mere mention of the
deadly disease has a benumbing effect, due to its capacity to destroy
hope and existence of its victims. So, people have assured themselves
that whatever is done to halt its further circulation, no matter its
grievous side effects, is welcome. It is like this: a monster is out
there ready to devour, so, even
if we destroy all that is dear, worthy
and precious to us in order to escape its cruel clutches, it is
all good and welcome. But when the monster goes, what do we have left to
go on as rational, decent human beings? Is it not better to tell
ourselves
that it is only the straying child that the monster devours? Yes,
is it not better to stay out harm’s way and save the things we had to
sacrifice to escape the monster, which do not even guarantee for us a
100% protection? These days, parents watch helplessly as their tender
children of five and six years old
are brutally disrobed of their innocence and fragile morality by
clearly ill-intentioned “AIDS activists”. Campaigners now invade
primary schools to deflower the innocence
of hapless kids by arousing and exciting their senses about
sexual immorality and putting
packs of condoms in their hands. In most cases, the AIDS messages
are meant more to titillate than educate! I
beg to differ. I totally disagree that the best way to keep a child’s
mind pure and off sexual immorality is early boundless exposure to
pornography.
It is like they are saying: Don’t wait for
them to reach
puberty stage; just tell the child all that is to be known about
sex at six or five, warn him sufficiently, tell him about condom, and
then leave him to make his choices. These days many parents have equally
become AIDS campaigners themselves. Once their child is up to six years
old, or even younger, they would call her into the warmth
of their bedroom are tell her: See, make sure don’t allow any
boy to do it, but if you must allow him, make sure he uses a condom!
What a damnable alternative,
a defeatist strategy. By the time the child is twelve, she has
already sampled all the boys in your street. In some cases, the child
may not even fully understand the orientation she is receiving, but the
curiosity already awakened in her urges her on to try: after all, Mummy
said, condom should always be there as a great defense, an escape route.
And what follows is unrestrained sexual immorality as campaigners invade
schools to amplify the messages Mummy has already given them at home. My
view is that people should rather be warned of the consequences of all
their actions, and then let the looming consequence of every action
constitute enough deterrence. That is what differentiates animals from
human beings. You see a danger, and you endeavour to avoid it, because
you know the consequence of not doing so. I am wholly against any form
of stigmatization and discrimination against AIDS victims. They are
indeed victims and need the support, love, care and encouragement of
all. But, I do not think there is anything wrong with referring to the
mistake of somebody and using the consequences he is suffering a result
of that mistake to warn others to be careful. Knowing that there are
other ways through which HIV could contracted, the
warning will have to be all-embracing. Every person ought to know
that just as one must avoid allowing unsterilized metals puncture
one’s body,
the same way, if sex is strictly restricted within the safe
confines of marriage between faithful couples, there is a 100% assurance
that the virus will not enter one’s body. A number of people who had
had difficulty restraining themselves have discovered that turning to
God in all sincerity and healthy fellowship has helped a lot, since with
Him remains
super abundant grace and enablement to say no any sinful habit.
Already, a lot of studies and findings are tearing to shreds the dubious
confidence AIDS campaigners have for self-serving reasons built on
condom. We know that when reduced to a very micro level, we would
realize that several objects, especially rubber and plastics, have tiny
holes through which very minute micro organisms could pass. Genuine and
conscientious experts are warning that the virus that causes AIDS belong
to the category of those very minute micro organisms which could pass
through the walls of a condom. Hey, remember it is your life that is at
stake here, my dear, so you better ignore the dubious, self-serving
assurances of
AIDS merchants and save your sweet, precious life! Oh, yes, you
have an option…you can say no, if you really mean to. I
insist that instead of making light very dirty habits and presenting
them as ennobling ways of life, let’s emphasize the consequences such
ugly preoccupations attract. They would certainly serve as sufficient
deterrent. Why would a child want to contract a terminal disease when he
or she had seen another girl or boy from the next compound die of the
same disease? The great tragedy of this age is this clear approval
being gradually
given to licentious lifestyle, which then translates to a
deregulation of sexual immorality. What girls and boys get from those
campaigns are an unambiguous encouragement to go on rampage once they
are sure they are dully
“protected”.
Whatever then happened to good old abstinence, if one may dare
ask? What is now the difference between dogs and humans? And if I may
ask, what is the use living, if one must be a dog? As
I leave my office every evening and see some little boys and barely clad
girls wanting
to “do it” right there on the streets,
it really dawns on me that the “anti-AIDS campaigns at home and
school are yielding the expected dividends. Even the concerts where
HIV/AIDS is vehemently “combated” end up achieving only one thing:
promotion of casual sex. The musicians “spreading the message”
indulge in horrible immoral gyrations before hapless youths convoked to
be educated about AIDS at those totally ungodly concerts. What an irony!
Some of the participating youths are in the process so sexually excited
that at all the dark spots at the stadium or square, AIDS is being
mutually distributed by immorally intertwined couples while the
“message against AIDS is on! It we should be sick and tired of this
clear fraud by now. Well,
I know that AIDS activism has now become a very lucrative business. That
is why everybody is now an AIDS “expert”
or “activist” “spreading the message” at one concert,
workshop, or the other. For you to remain and proper in this business,
and ensure the dollars keep flowing towards you, you must
continue to speak the language of your pay masters. And the Western
sponsors have only one mission: to demonize abstinence and promote
unrestrained, “protected” sex as if it has become a great offence to
remain a virgin. I have said it before that the so called Western
“civilization” is presently in serious crises because of the silly
interpretation they had given to freedom in their societies a long time
ago. My guess is that with the collapse of all that is moral and decent
in the West, they are now minded to destroy Africa’s clearly superior
moral fibre and turn their peculiar failure into a hallowed standard.
And they are succeeding because, due to the abject poverty ravaging
these parts, they will always get eager and willing marketers. Great is
the power of money. It destroys the conscience and wreaks untold havoc
to every considerations for scruples and decency. Or else, what on
earth, for instance, could motivate parents today to allow their tender
daughters undress before the world just to win meaningless titles of
Miss This or Miss That? Indeed, if poverty has not wrought unqualified
damage on our otherwise decent heritage, the parents and relations of
Oluchi Onweagba would have since disowned her because of the
near-pornographic pictures of hers
circulating around the world, and even refused to touch the
totally filthy money she is getting from such a reprehensible trade. I
must tell you that if I decide today to
organize a “Miss Erect Breast” or “Miss Nude Beauty”
pageant,
with a promise to pay about one million naira as annual salary to
the winner, some parents would certainly come bribing me to
shortlist their daughters. They would not mind even when they know the
contest would surely involve baring it all before the world. Cursed be
poverty and those whose bad leadership of this nation has unleashed it
on us. Do you know that even advertisers will just be falling over
themselves to sponsor such a pageant. It is indeed terrible. So
the AIDS campaign has become one big racket. The media has also not
helped matters by their eagerness to spotlight these dubious
campaigners. Once someone is unemployed now, the next option would be to
become an AIDS activist. And all you need to get foreign sponsorship is
the “linguistically correct”: Yes to Condoms, No to Abstinence! And
then, a good media coverage. I sincerely doubt the motive of this
generous sponsors because, this appears to be one job I know in which we
have a preponderance of “experts” without any training. But if I may
dare I ask: What kind of greed and desperation could really make our
people accept to be paid to go on carry out this deadly mission with
sickening enthusiasm?
What a pity. By
Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye |