God, AIDS, Africa & HOPE

Bartholomäus Grill

Mercy before law – How five German bishops formed a view of the pandemic in South Africa

The bishops don’t seem to be comfortable. They have just arrived from their dioceses in Germany and now find themselves in the grim township of Mfuleni on the Cape Flats. Earlier, as they walked through the waiting rooms in the day clinic, mothers were holding out their sick children towards them. To the observer it seemed as though the distinguished visitors were somewhat concerned that by touching these children they might catch something. Now the five bishops and their entourage are listening to a brief introduction which seems to make some of them a little nervous, because the priest addressing them is being quite frank. He is referring to clinical trials with microbicides which women apply to their vaginas to protect themselves for HIV. He is speaking about oral sex, with which young people circumvent the demands of pre-marital abstinence. He is talking about African naturopathy and traditional healers who must be integrated in the fight against the disease, and he tells them that he himself is an honorary sangoma and that he had himself circumcised. And he lectures at length about one protective measure which most Church leaders hesitate to bring up. “We show people how to use condoms. As a priest I could not justify telling them: ‘You may not’.”

That Catholic priest is Stefan Hippler, and he is introducing HOPE Cape Town. He had prepared himself thoroughly for this morning’s presentation. After all, it doesn’t happen every day that five German bishops visit a South African township to learn more about HIV/Aids and its terrible effects. Hippler invited these men of God, a singular opportunity to acquaint them with the stark realities. He speaks bluntly and with great passion. The Aids ribbon on his lapel seems like the insignia of an officer in a military campaign against the disease. On the wall behind Hippler a board meticulously records the distribution of condoms at the day clinic over the past 12 months. It even registers the target figure – 16,306 prophylactics per month. “And yet, so far we have failed,” Hippler concedes. “All our education efforts have failed to meet our goals; prevalence is increasing.”

The statistics from Mfuleni confirm the extent of the crisis. Some 85,000 people live here in cramped conditions. Unemployment stands at 60%, the tuberculosis rate is 30%, and 80% regularly take drugs such as tik (methamphetamines), mandrax or high potency alcohol. The official rape statistics are extremely high; the unofficial numbers are even higher. The virus can spread almost unchecked in that kind of environment. About 30% of men and 45% of women (think about it for a second: forty-five percent) are HIV-infected.

“I would like to tell people in good conscience and with the backing of the Church: ‘You may protect yourselves’,” Hippler reiterates. “People are suffering from Church prescriptions about what they may and may not do…we are creating misery. We are complicit when people infect themselves.”

A German-born bishop from Queenstown in the Eastern Cape, who is escorting his German counterparts, listens to all of this and then rises to speak. “What are we supposed to do with condoms? You are talking nonsense,” he says angrily. A short silence follows. From the room next door we can hear the whimpering of an infant. It is as though an old Catholic ghost is floating in the room: heresy.

Delegation leader Dr Ludwig Schick, Archbishop of Bamberg in Bavaria, chooses his words carefully, but he is taking the same line as his incensed brother bishop. The discussion cannot be reduced to condoms, he cautions, that’s just a side aspect. “Condoms won’t solve the problem, they are not a formula to avoid the spread of Aids,” Archbishop Schick says. “The actual causes must be fought against: poverty, inadequate education, deficient hygiene, deficient medical care…and also moral error.” The archbishop’s analysis sounds downright revolutionary, but one suspects that he really wanted to get off the subject of condoms, that anathema of Catholic teaching.

A consultor in the delegation later says that in “this matter” Africans have to decide for themselves. “We should not and may not interfere. That would be a new form of colonialism.” What audacious justifications we devise to absolve ourselves from responsibility! Evidently the consultor was unaware that a few years earlier the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference had relaxed the policy on condoms as a means of HIV prevention within marriage. Their pastoral letter “A Message of Hope”, adopted in July 2001, allowed spouses to use “appropriate means” to protect themselves from infection. And these appropriate means are made of rubber.

So on this autumn morning there is privation, violence and vulnerability on the outside, and inside hand-wringing balking and reality-dodging. There it is again, that old fear that the dam will break should moral teachings be liberalised. One could call it the Gorbachev Syndrome, after the man who wanted to reform Soviet communism but instead presided over the demise of the Red Empire.

Oh, if only Catholics were as daring as the Anglicans, and more courageous like their shepherds, such as Desmond Tutu, the former Archbishop of Cape Town, whom the German delegation wants to meet with. At the height of apartheid, The Arch – as the locals fondly call him – put up a Black Madonna in the magnificent neo-Gothic St George’s Cathedral. Just behind the Mother of Mercy, the visitor can admire colourful tapestries which depict how early and resolutely the Anglican Church joined the fight against the disease. And in front, at the entrance, there are brochures with explicit information about HIV/Aids, including images of female and male sex organs affected by sexually transmitted diseases. It is unthinkable that such realistic illustrations would find their way into a Catholic church – in the eyes of the chief ideologues, that is indecent, indeed, dirty. Something like that can’t be shown. The hang-ups are so powerful that eyes are averted from these images. And so one also pushes aside the suffering to which these pictures testify.

But back to Mfuleni, to that memorable meeting with the bishops which is at risk of turning into a lesson about the self-inflicted dilemma of the institutional Church until Gerhard Pieschl, the Bishop of Limburg, raises his hand. He is generally regarded to be on the conservative side of things, but here he shows empathy with Stefan Hippler’s case. “Mercy comes before the law,” Bishop Pieschl explains, “and because of that there must be a way that our Church can differentiate for the good of the people.” To the amusement of the assembly, he adds: “Am I going to end up on the stake now?”

As the visitors walk through the slum, looking into its humble shacks and chatting with their residents, Bishop Leo Schwarz of Trier says something else which gives me hope: “These people must know all the option and decide according to their conscience.” He evidently has taken to heart the earlier plea from Fr Hippler: “I ask you to think more about these questions… We must overcome the fear that we might say something wrong. I can say it, because I don’t want to become a bishop.”

Translation from the book:
Gott – Aids – Afrika
Hardcover: 207 pages  –  Publisher: Kiepenheuer & Witsch GmbH (August 31, 2007)
Language: German  –  ISBN-10: 3462039253  –  ISBN-13: 978-3462039252
Gott – Aids – Afrika
Paperback  – Bastei – Luebbe  –
Language: German  –  ISBN-10: 3404606159  –  ISBN-13: 978-3404606153

Filed under: General, HIV and AIDS, HIV Prevention, HIV Treatment, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, HOPE Cape Town Trust, Medical and Research, Networking, Politics and Society, Reflection, Society and living environment, Aids, bartholomaeus grill, book, cape town, Catholic, catholic church, Church Matters, gott-aids-afrika, hiv, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, HOPE Cape Town Trust, moral theology, oekonomia, people living with the virus, pope, sexuality, south africa, stefan hippler, theology, Theology

Stefan Hippler

Saints and sinners – Billions for the ‘War on Terror’ – alms for the fight against Aids

When I attended the World Aids Conference in Bangkok in 2004 I noticed how few American experts had come to present their latest research findings. I asked a delegate about that, and he cited two reasons. Firstly, the US health ministry delegation had been jeered at the previous Aids summit in Barcelona. Secondly, Washington was increasing spending on its “War on Terror” and cut funding for Aids research. The military machinery in Iraq and Afghanistan, the secret anti-terrorism missions, the military prison camps and torture centre, “extraordinary renditions” of suspected terrorists…all that costs a lot of money. In February 2007, then-President George W Bush proposed increasing the military budget to the astronomical sum of $700 billion. It’s almost impossible to imagine how one could use these hundreds of billions of dollars to fight and alleviate poverty and diseases such as HIV/Aids. Instead the hundreds of billions of dollars are spent on death.
The poor die quicker
The majority of humanity is poor, and the rich countries aren’t really interested in changing that. The example of Aids illuminates the scandal. A few alms are handed out to the fight against as a way of polishing the public image. When President Bush announced his PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Programme for AIDS Relief) fund, initial enthusiasm quickly gave way to disillusionment when it became clear that large portions of the funding had to be spent on expensive medications made in America. Critics charged that with PEPFAR, Bush settled a debt to the pharmaceutical industry which had supported him. To qualify for funding, projects had to satisfy strict moral criteria – the arch-conservatives and fundamentalist Christian supporters of the president demanded as much. Distribution of condoms or working with prostitutes had no place in the Bush initiative. To qualify for support, one had to buy into ideology. Many African countries with exhausted health budgets couldn’t afford to refuse the American offer.

But studies have shown that life expectancy is low even among those who receive medical treatment but live in precarious conditions. Medicine offers limited benefits when one is unemployed, or living with no prospects in disordered circumstances. The Aids pandemic can be beaten only if we manage to overcome the inhumane levels of poverty.

Only in 2008 the guidelines for the PEPFAR programme were more relaxed regarding abstinence programmes and work with prostitutes.

Women are at higher risk from Aids
The majority of infected people globally are women. There certainly are biological and medical reasons for that, but the primary cause is social injustice. In most societies, women can’t haggle with men – they are subordinated and subjugated. The quest for meaningful equal rights hits an obstacle at religious customs and traditional gender roles. South Africa is a good example: Women are the pillars of township life, they typically are responsible for an income, care for the children, put food on the table – but in a conspicuously macho society they have no say. They don’t even have autonomy over their own bodies; sexuality is not a matter of their own discretion. And South Africa’s rape rates are the highest in the world. Women are helplessly exposed to the Aids pandemic and its effects.

Those who know less fall ill quicker
In a battle with poverty, education has no chance. The daily fight for survival is arduous; many people are illiterate, many have never even seen the inside of a school. For them education is an extravagance. Sometimes even church institutions exploit this social deficiency: poor and uneducated people are easier to lead; they don’t ask too many questions. And they have little idea about how to protect themselves against HIV/Aids.

One only needs to speak with some people in Cape Town’s impoverished slums, young adults who barely speak English, if at all. One will soon realise why all these noble education programmes fail. Often they will say that they don’t need advice because they can’t be infected. That may sound crazy – but isn’t that the same argument used by Western sex tourists, who are convinced that when they go on holiday, so does the virus?

I feel helpless after such encounters, and often ask myself what my Church could do. It can’t suffice to say that it is doing a lot in Aids care and in the distribution of Aids drugs. Its response must be more diverse and multi-faceted. My Church’s inquest into the causes of poverty should become more rigorous; it should place greater emphasis on the issue of gender inequality and on the disastrous effects of traditional norms and morality. It must unequivocally denounce the injustices that cry out to the heavens.
Pope John Paul II set a standard when he vociferously condemned the invasion of Iraq. He placed peace, justice and the preservation of Creation on the agenda. Every year, $1,2 trillion is spent on armaments. At the same time millions of people die because of an unfair global distribution of goods, resources and opportunities. We Christians believe that every person is equal in dignity, and that this dignity derives from God’s love. Every person is equally precious, everybody has attributes that should be encouraged, and everyone has a right to life, work, health and physical security – in short, the right to a humane existence.

We Church people must be like prophets in the desert, unceasingly explaining the complex relationship between poverty, underdevelopment and inequality. We must be honest brokers and also be prepared to acknowledge and admit our own shortcomings. We Catholics especially are part of the problem in the area of HIV/Aids. In theological terms, the Body of Christ – the Church itself – is infected with HIV. Only when we regard that illness as our illness, only when the cries of the suffering are our cries, only then will we understand the communion of saint and sinner. And only then are we capable of playing a role as credible agents of change. And only then can we lead by good example.

Translation from the book:
Gott – Aids – Afrika
Hardcover: 207 pages  –  Publisher: Kiepenheuer & Witsch GmbH (August 31, 2007)
Language: German  –  ISBN-10: 3462039253  –  ISBN-13: 978-3462039252
Gott – Aids – Afrika
Paperback  – Bastei – Luebbe  –
Language: German  –  ISBN-10: 3404606159  –  ISBN-13: 978-3404606153

Filed under: General, HIV and AIDS, HIV Prevention, HIV Treatment, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, HOPE Cape Town Trust, Medical and Research, Networking, Politics and Society, Reflection, Society and living environment, Aids, bartholomaeus grill, book, cape town, Catholic, catholic church, Church Matters, gott-aids-afrika, hiv, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, HOPE Cape Town Trust, moral theology, oekonomia, people living with the virus, pope, sexuality, south africa, stefan hippler, theology, Theology

Bartholomäus Grill

’Safari in Zambia’ – A modern fairy tale in South Africa

The journalist drives to the township, visits a clinic, views the medical facilities, stands next to a sick-bed, speaks with patients, their relatives, nursing sisters, doctors. And then he returns to his desk to draft his report. He is shaken by the stories he has heard and the suffering he has seen, but now HIV/Aids is as distant as his city office is from the slums. That’s the routine of the foreign correspondent in South Africa. He moves between two worlds and tries to convey to his European readership a hopefully authentic picture of the pandemic’s destructive effects.

But today, a scorching day at the end of November 2004, everything is different. Christmas is coming and, as every year, I’m making plans to take gifts to the township. Toys which our son Leo doesn’t play with anymore or which are slightly damaged – toy cars with bent axles, faded building blocks, a plastic robot from Kentucky Fried Chicken that has lost its antennas. And a beautiful white rocking horse with real horse hair which Leo recently won in a tombola at his crèche. He was never really that keen on it, calling it a “girly horse”, and now he wants to give it to the children at the Beautiful Gate orphanage in Crossroads township. These children have very few toys, and white kids like him have plenty. And such a big rocking horse, that would be something very special for them. Leo wants to present it himself, and now we have a problem.

We, as parents, are now facing a question which we have not asked ourselves before: what are the risks of infection if Leo should play with HIV-positive peers. Shouldn’t a four-year-old rather stay at home? Or are we being overprotective? Are we still unnerved by the dregs of those myths and urban legends we have encountered in Africa? Some people believe that you can get HIV just from shaking hands. Or from the saliva of people who spit when they speak. Or from toilet seats. Or from touching a door handle.

Of course we know that these ideas are baloney. But what if Leo gets a scratch while fooling around on the monkey gym, if he’s bleeding from an unnoticed wound and wrestles around with a kid who has an open sore? Or if a child with TB coughs at him? We are anxious. We may know a lot about HIV/Aids, but do we know enough? A weird feeling comes over us, but we don’t want to admit it: it’s a kind of residual fear of HIV/Aids.

In the end, we rose above these concerns. After all, we had often visited the children at Beautiful Gate with colleagues and friends. We played with them and carried them in our arms. So, pack in the rocking horse and off to Crossroads! It turned out to be a jolly afternoon. The children were delighted with the rocking horse, and Leo, who during the presentation was still a little shy, was running around with them in the garden. Today, a few years later, we can only laugh at those concerns of ours.

But then there is the story of the  Pettersons* family: Lisa, an entrepreneur from Belgium, and Ulf, a Swedish designer, and their son Arvid. Their nanny Tshepo had been feeling unwell for a while. (She doesn’t want to be identified for reasons that will become clear, so her name and that of others involved in this account have been changed.) When she couldn’t work any longer, the Pettersons sent her to their general practitioner. He examined Tshepo thoroughly and voiced an alarming suspicion. After repeated blood tests he called Ulf and told him that Tshepo was HIV-positive. During the telephone conversation Ulf looked out of the window into the garden, where Tshepo was playing with Arvid. It’s easy to imagine what fear suddenly gripped Ulf. And he was also annoyed that the doctor should have given him, not his patient, the test results.

Shortly after, Tshepo, the doctor and Arvids’ parents gathered in the Petterssons’ living room. Tshepo seemed to sense what was going on because, as Ulf remembers it, there was panic in her eyes. She reacted with shock to the news and expressed doubt that the GP was telling the truth. She pushed little Arvid away from her – to protect him. She presumed she was going to lose her job that day.

The weekend seemed to last an eternity. The Petterssons were facing an emergency. What now? They conferred with medical experts in South Africa, called Aids consultants overseas, googled the Internet, talked with friends, and discussed all available options to the point of personal exhaustion. Out of the blue, HIV/Aids had ceased to be an impersonal disaster that was raging elsewhere, out there in the desolation of the townships. It now was an illness close to home, intimately so. It was entering the inner family circle, posing a risk to what was most precious to them, their only child.

At times like these one begins to question certainties. What are the possibilities of infection? How big is the risk of contagion really? Aren’t there some extraordinary circumstances when the virus can be transmitted? Could it happen while brushing teeth? Or during nappy changes when the child’s skin is raw? Or through tiny abrasions while the child is playing?

It was a torturous weekend. The love for their child was at variance with the welfare of a person who had loved the child like nobody else. What to do? For parents this is a lonely time.

And so it was for Tshepo. That weekend she sat in her tiny flat in Gugulethu township, tormented by fear, resignation and an intense sense uncertainty. She berated herself. How could it come to this? How could she ever lead a normal life again? Could she even justify to still take care of little Arvid? Out of the question, case closed. She felt like all people do at first after receiving such crushing news: as though they are on death row. But what if it turns out differently? What if there is a miracle and she can continue working? Tshepo is a religious woman, and in all the gloominess of her situation there was still a tiny glimmer of hope. She thought about how she could protect Silas. She could wear plastic aprons and gloves, and stop working at the lightest scratch until it was healed.

And then came the decision Tshepo didn’t expect – and neither did the Petterssons. They resolved to keep Tshepo on. To this day they are surprised at the boldness of their decision. They even went against the insistent advice of their doctor who thought the risk was too high and recommended that Tshepo be dismissed immediately. My wife Antje and I have often talked about what we might have done. Our Leo and an HIV-positive nanny? Could it, would it, might it have been defensible? Are there limits to compassion? Where do we draw these limits? I’m not sure that I would have been as courageous as the Petterssons.

Since the Petterssons took their decision, Arvid got a little sister, Annika. And of course Tshepo looks after her too. She is a cheerful and happy person; she has a fulfilling job and a family which embraces her as one their own. “Tshepo enriches our life,” says Ulf, “because through her we have discovered a whole new dimension to humanity.”

Arvid celebrates his fifth birthday with a party. The garden is decorated with paper flags, and a crowd of children are running after colourful balloons. In the midst of them are Arvid, Annika, Leo and Tshepo. They are now climbing all over Lisa’s old Landrover and play “Safari in Zambia”. Tshepo tells me that she changed antiretroviral medications two months ago. Her CD4 cell count – that is, the white blood cells that coordinate the human immune system and help to ward off infections – had dropped to a life-threatening 35 per millilitre of blood, but now it’s back to 700. She tells me all that clearly and without inhibition. She has learnt to speak about HIV/Aids and its implications. And she has set some strict ground rules for when she is in the company of the children. But generally her disorder is no longer an issue.

“Do you remember when we visited Tutu?” she asks me. How could I forget the meeting with the former Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town? Events like these are among the highlights of any foreign correspondent’s life. In 2006 Ulf and I had an appointment with Tutu to do a profile on him for a Swiss magazine. Tshepo had heard about it and asked if she could tag along; it was her dream to meet that outspoken man of God personally. So we took her along, and I think our meeting was all the more relaxed and jovial because we were accompanied by a black sister, a simple woman, who bore her heavy cross with a light heart. After the interview Tutu blessed us and Ulf took a picture of Tshepo with the Archbishop. That photo now hangs in her parents’ house, in a small village in the Free State, and hardly a day goes by when neighbours and relatives don’t come around to admire it.

Everybody is proud of Tshepo, but that could quickly change if her HIV status was revealed. Only her parents know, and her sister, with whom she shares the flat in Gugulethu. The fear of being stigmatised is great, and in rural areas having the disease can lead to banishment from the community – and then even a photo with the legendary freedom fighter Desmond Tutu won’t help. And that’s why Tshepo insists that her story won’t be published in South Africa.

But she doesn’t have more time to chat now. The minibus taxi will come soon. She must get home to Gugulethu while the sun is still out because after dusk it is too dangerous to walk outdoors on account of the robberies. Tshepo embraces Ulf and Lisa, and kisses the birthday boy. And little Annika gets a specially big kiss on the cheek.

* Names and places changed

Translation from the book:
Gott – Aids – Afrika
Hardcover: 207 pages  –  Publisher: Kiepenheuer & Witsch GmbH (August 31, 2007)
Language: German  –  ISBN-10: 3462039253  –  ISBN-13: 978-3462039252
Gott – Aids – Afrika
Paperback  – Bastei – Luebbe  –
Language: German  –  ISBN-10: 3404606159  –  ISBN-13: 978-3404606153

Filed under: General, HIV and AIDS, HIV Prevention, HIV Treatment, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, HOPE Cape Town Trust, Medical and Research, Networking, Politics and Society, Reflection, Society and living environment, Aids, bartholomaeus grill, book, cape town, Catholic, catholic church, Church Matters, gott-aids-afrika, hiv, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, HOPE Cape Town Trust, moral theology, oekonomia, people living with the virus, pope, sexuality, south africa, stefan hippler, theology, Theology

Stefan Hippler

Judge not – The pointless categories of guilt and innocence

It’s one of those lectures you don’t forget in a hurry. Prof. Marc Cotton, a steering committee member of HOPE Cape Town, delivers it to the staff of City Park Hospital in Cape Town. It is 7am and his listeners are still rubbing the sleep out of their eyes. He is lecturing on general socio-medical issues related to HIV/Aids. The stream of dense facts and figures nearly drowns out the peculiar story of 14 children. As an aside, Prof. Cotton reports that all of these 14 young patients are HIV-positive, but their parents are HIV-negative. The children come from different areas, but they have one thing in common: they were all hospitalised for lengthy treatment of various illnesses. Prof Cotton doesn’t need to offer a conclusion; the inference is obvious.
This incident contradicts the general notion that infection is always due to sexual contact – a prejudice that is also widespread in church circles. When we meet an infected person, all of us instinctively wonder: How did it happen? Our terminology betrays us. We prefix our references to affected children with the word “innocent”. That makes it so much easier to be compassionate. But with adults there is always the question of guilt. We might not say it out loud, but it’s in our thoughts.

It cannot be disputed that HIV is chiefly transmitted through sexual activity. But there are other possible causes of contagion, such as blood transfusions or transmission during birth. The case of these 14 children should counsel us to be more vigilant in our assumptions and to curb our imagination.

A biblical verse might help us: “Judge not, lest you be judged” (Matthew 7:1). Our perceptions should not be clouded by questions about how, where and why somebody was infected. We should be guided only by seeing the infected person as our brother or sister, to suffer with them in compassion. In our speculations about the origins of contagion we nurture the seeds of stigmatization. When Jesus, in Matthews Gospel, speaks about the final judgment, he places among the saved those who visited the poor and captive, who clothed the naked and fed the hungry. Christ doesn’t talk about the events that led these people to their pitiable circumstances. He judges nobody. Nor should we. All people with HIV deserve our unqualified support, like these 14 children Prof Cotton told us about in his lecture.

Translation  from the book:
Gott – Aids – Afrika
Hardcover: 207 pages  –  Publisher: Kiepenheuer & Witsch GmbH (August 31, 2007)
Language: German  –  ISBN-10: 3462039253  –  ISBN-13: 978-3462039252
Gott – Aids – Afrika
Paperback  – Bastei – Luebbe  –
Language: German  –  ISBN-10: 3404606159  –  ISBN-13: 978-3404606153

Filed under: General, HIV and AIDS, HIV Prevention, HIV Treatment, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, HOPE Cape Town Trust, Medical and Research, Networking, Politics and Society, Reflection, Society and living environment, Aids, bartholomaeus grill, book, cape town, Catholic, catholic church, Church Matters, gott-aids-afrika, hiv, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, HOPE Cape Town Trust, moral theology, oekonomia, people living with the virus, pope, sexuality, south africa, stefan hippler, theology, Theology

Stefan Hippler

The last birthday  –  Little Fareed’s death – a common outrage in Africa

Fareed* is emaciated and he breathes heavily. For a ten-year-old boy he weighs too little and his eyes seem far too big for his face. And yet, Fareed is one of the luckier children. He has been admitted into a hospital, the Ithemba ward at Tygerberg Hospital. Fareed’s sister has sat by his bedside for days. She holds his hand, helps to change the bedding, comforts him.
When I meet Fareed for the first time, volunteers have just made up his complexion with base. His big, sunken eyes look at me with quiet determination. Fareed has a yearning desire: he wants to have a birthday party. He was there when a little girl in the next room had a birthday party, organised by colleagues from HOPE Cape Town. It had a cake with candles and presents and all the trimmings. He would like that too.
But there is one problem: Fareed will not live to see his next birthday. He has only days to live.

We decide to grant him his last wish anyway. We bake cakes, buy gifts, and decorate the room. And two days later we celebrate his “eleventh birthday”. Fareed cannot get up, so all the children are gathered around his bed, the birthday cake with burning candles on the side-table. We help him to unwrap his presents – he is too weak to do even that. Our chorus of “Happy Birthday” sounds more like a swansong. I struggle to hold back my tears, as does everybody else. It is a cheerful horror party which I won’t forget as long as I live. But little Fareed is happy. A smile frequent smile floods across his face; he doesn’t have enough strength to animate his joy. A week later Fareed dies.
These beautiful memories are distorted by a rage that this child had to die because at the time the medications which might have relieved his suffering and extend his life were unaffordable. It was an unnecessary, senseless death. And yet it is this particular death which revitalise me in times of despair, when I’m about to give up, when the sheer enormity of the suffering I see threatens to crush me. Fareed, a fleeting acquaintance in my life, has seared himself into my heart with a scorching intensity. When doubts start to take over, I think about him and remind myself why I am involved: on behalf of Fareed and all the children and adolescents I have watched suffering and dying from Aids, some in calm serenity, others crying in pain. Every such child, every such adolescent, represents the dying cries of the crucified Jesus in our times.

* Name changed

Translation from:
Gott – Aids – Afrika
Hardcover: 207 pages  –  Publisher: Kiepenheuer & Witsch GmbH (August 31, 2007)
Language: German  –  ISBN-10: 3462039253  –  ISBN-13: 978-3462039252
Gott – Aids – Afrika
Paperback  – Bastei – Luebbe  –
Language: German  –  ISBN-10: 3404606159  –  ISBN-13: 978-3404606153

Filed under: General, HIV and AIDS, HIV Prevention, HIV Treatment, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, HOPE Cape Town Trust, Medical and Research, Networking, Politics and Society, Reflection, Society and living environment, Aids, bartholomaeus grill, book, cape town, Catholic, catholic church, Church Matters, gott-aids-afrika, hiv, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, HOPE Cape Town Trust, moral theology, oekonomia, people living with the virus, pope, sexuality, south africa, stefan hippler, theology, Theology