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Compassion, Not Condemnation
by
Professor Martin Prozesky
Director: Unilever Ethics Centre
University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg

Professor Martin Prozesky, Director: Unilever Centre, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg

Many people who take ethics very seriously may nonetheless have done more harm than good by failing to base judgements about HIV/AIDS on the core values of compassion and supportiveness. Instead, one still senses rejection and condemnation.

Let me illustrate this tragic error of judgement. I happened to be in the San Francisco area in 1987 when HIV/AIDS was first coming to public attention. In that area and at that time it seemed to be an affliction affecting the gay community. One day when I was walking down a street in San Francisco, I chanced upon a small rally aimed at raising awareness of this new and fateful issue. But what really caught my attention was a young man standing off by himself with a large sandwich board draped over his shoulders. On it were the following words from the Book of Revelation in the New Testament:

"Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great. She who has made all the nations drink of the wine of her fornication."
"Come out of her my people - says the Lord - that you may not participate in her sins and that you may not receive of her plagues."

Intrigued, I went up to the young man and asked him if his message was in fact what it seemed, a condemnation of AIDS as a plague being visited upon sexual sinners. He nodded his affirmation. At that time neither he nor I could know that many who would have the HI virus would be young girls, women, men and even babies who have been raped, wives whose husbands have cheated on them and babies born with the deadly virus.

To see such people as sinners being punished is utterly monstrous. In those early days of the pandemic the monstrosity was less easy to see than it is now. But what was just as clear then as it is now is the primacy of compassion in the religious ethic to which that young man in San Francisco belonged. Alas, somebody whose value-system goes immediately into extreme condemnation-mode when he or she hears about homosexuality is poorly placed to see a fatal disease that seemed then to be confined to gays as an opportunity to show compassion rather than condemnation.

That is precisely why we must build our AIDS ethics on a deeper and better moral foundation involving all the compassion, support and respect we can give.

This editorial is based on an extract from Professor Prozesky's new book for general readers, Frontiers of Conscience: Exploring Ethics for a New Millennium. Pietermaritzburg; Equinym Publishing, 2003.

The book is available from select bookshops or through: Cluster Publications, P.O. Box 2400, Pietermaritzburg 3200; Tel/Fax:(033) 345 9897; E-mail: cluster@futurenet.co.za