Religion’s Role in the
Expansion of AIDS
By Arash Sorx
Note: this article was published for the
first time in Persian by “Sekoolar” (the Secular), a publication
of Anti-Religion Society. Hereby we translate it to English and
publish it again in the event of AIDS day 2006. The final two
paragraphs, which were specific about Anti-religion society,
have been omitted from the text.
Among the numerous burdens of capitalism that are taking away
human lives everyday, some are seemingly “natural” burdens, the
result of the tension between nature and human; in some theories
these are even nature’s reaction to human violence against it.
Of these burdens we can name deadly diseases in general and
AIDS in particular. AIDS has put its shadow on the entire world
like a spectre. The virus has been known for less than a quarter
of a century, but its shadow has changed all our lives. More
than 40 million people, which is more than the population of
Spain, live with HIV. More than 25 million people have died from
AIDS, more than a million people every year. In this very recent
year, 2005, more than 3 million people (at least half a million
being children) have died from this disease.
But is AIDS entirely a natural burden? Is it only a disease
that humans are not able to cure? Let’s just say that the notion
that unpreventable killing of humans by this disease is a
“natural” thing, is a delusion.
Religious moral and sexual relations
Nearly two centuries after the Enlightenment and the French
Revolution, religion not only interferes with people’s lives,
but it has gone from being the “opium of the people” to being,
as Korosh Modaressi once said, the machine of opium gangsters.
Many humans understand the world via religion and religious
morality, and they are raised and educated accordingly. In
Islamic countries, this story is a sadder one. That is where
many girls have to wear the Islamic hijab from childhood and
Islamic moralities shape their lives in many ways. One of the
most important of these “morals” is antagonism toward sex and
sexual relations. The reality that many humans, all over the
world, live with the superstitious belief that “sex before
marriage” is non-acceptable and generally have a hostile
attitude to sexuality is a crime of religion that one could
write a great deal about. But when it comes to AIDS, this and
other religious moral prove deadly and play a direct role in
humans’ deaths.
Religious Taboos on sexual education: a road for AIDS
expansion
It is no secret that one of the chief routes of AIDS
transmission is sexual relations between humans. Therefore one
of the most important ways to prevent AIDS is using a condom in
a sexual relation. Today it is widely accepted that sexual
education, including education about the need to use condoms,
and making condoms widely available for all, is an important
condition to prevent AIDS. Conferences, bulletins and
publications on AIDS are emphatic about this. But religion is a
major obstacle against the AIDS fighters and medieval moralities
overshadow the lives of thousands of people who are, one way or
another, chained by them.
The issue is simple. Sex and sexual relations of humans, that
as Marx said are the most natural relations between humans, have
become a “Taboo” in religion such that one can’t easily even
speak of them. To talk about one’s body or that of the opposite
sex, or any talk on sexual relations, is a major sin in a
culture of religious moralities; anybody who has been
unfortunate enough to live under a religious regime, as we did,
can truly understand this. Therefore sexual knowledge is
terribly low in religious societies; sometimes even to utter the
word “condom” (at least to do so before marriage) is a sinful
act.
Religion transforms sex and sexuality to a taboo and thereby
obstructs sexual education and the wide availability of condoms.
This opens the door to AIDS and other STDs. A society that has
made a taboo out of sex is very open to AIDS. (And I believe
this has been noted in declarations and resolutions of
conferences against AIDS). Lack of information about sexual
relations and the unavailability of condoms can easily lead to
unsafe sex and reproduce the monster of AIDS.
The belief that with abstinence from sex you can avoid AIDS
is absurd. Sex is a natural relation between humans and you
can’t avoid AIDS by avoiding sex, any more than you can avoid
polluted air by simply not breathing it. But religion proclaims
this ridiculous idea and points to “licentious people” as the
ones responsible for AIDS, a policy which produces tragic
results.
Unfortunately religion and the machines of organized
religious have started their own way and have already caused the
expansion of AIDS. Pope Jean Paul II officially opposed the use
of condoms, perhaps to show how backward, reactionary and
ridiculous Christianity is. We all know that in our very own
Islamic Republic, there is not a slight availability of condoms
and more important, sexual education. There are people who up to
the age of marriage are clueless about sex.
There are more particular examples too. Right now, the
activities of the Malaysian Aids Council have been banned in the
states of Terengganu and Kelantan that are ruled by the Islamic
Party of Malaysia (PAS); thus these two provinces are under more
danger from AIDS.
And then we have thousands and millions of families who,
living with the chains of religious law, ban sexual education
for their children and prevent their participation in sexual
education classes even in the heart of European families.
Indeed, it appears that the recent researches of some wise and
respected inventors of “cultural relativism” have shown that
people who are born in a Muslim family may not need sexual
education at all.
Religion and AIDS victims
An antagonistic attitude toward sexual relations shows its
sinister aspect in its attitude toward AIDS victims. It is here
that those who have become infected with AIDS because of
religious moralities and lack of information are boycotted from
the society by those very moralities; now they are to suffer the
stigma of “having the virus”. This is especially true because
AIDS is seen as a homosexual disease (which is not the case)
and, to the religious, this adds to the stigma.
The fact that a human has a virus and has to live with it
throughout life, and some moralities, rather than helping, claim
that these victims “deserve” it is one of the bitterly painful
realities of today’s world. The life of AIDS victims in
religious societies or even religious families, or those
families with religious moralities, is a life of great
tragedies.
Life free of religion
The demand to expand sexual education, along with
decriminalizing and helping AIDS victims, are among the demands
of gatherings and conferences that usually take place on
International Aids Day (December the 1st). We should fight for
these demands. We should force the Islamic Republic and any
other reactionary government in the world to accept these
demands. This should be among the primary principles of human’s
rights. A large obstacle in AIDS activists’ way is their lack of
radicalization against religions. They, according to the public
rhetoric, denounce only “religious fundamentalism”. Of course I
don’t say that every activist and campaigner should always
denounce all religions, but at least these moralities and
beliefs should be opposed as “religious” moralities, and not, as
they often are, as “misinterpretation of religions.” They have
made obstacles in wide sexual education even in Europe and US
and this is caused by nothing but religious moralities in
Islamic, Christian, Jewish and other religious families. These
obstacles must be removed, and this should be a more specific
demand of AIDS activists. We should proclaim that people with
AIDS are part of our society and we are responsible for taking
care of them. We should expose and renounce those religious and
sub-religious ideas that demand the transportation of AIDS
victims to segregated islands.
Religion and religious moralities should get out of people’s
lives. The sexual relations of humans have nothing to do with
any god, and any belief that casts a pall over these relations
should be resisted. Laws are not enough. Each and every one of
us should work for the emancipation and enlightenment of our
friends, relatives and loved ones from the chains of religion.
We should declare that everyone should refer back to humans and
humanity.
Arash Sorx is a young Iranian activist.
Arash_redcat@yahoo.com
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