Preaching to the converted

When I was a lad attending Tech College in Chelmsford, in Essex in eastern England, I lodged at a hostel right next to a church. I still remember how my Sunday morning hung-over sleep was interrupted by the peel of the bells from the church, calling the faithful to prayer. I was reminded of that as I was on my morning walk today, this time around the Lubang Buaya monument to the generals slain in 1965 during the so-called communist uprising. (The paths on my preferred walk would be very muddy following heavy rain yesterday.) It being Idul Adha (the Muslim Festival of the Sacrifice), the many mosques in the area were at full blast, and my ears were assaulted from all sides.

The letters pages of the Jakarta Post have long been bombarded by complaints about this, with comments reaching a crescendo after the reports that Cairo is taking steps to address this babel (One voice for Cairo's call to prayer). What seems to be clear is that several mosques appear to compete on the volume, rather than the quality, of their muezzin's call. The result is an often ear-splitting cacophony, which almost certainly exceeds the limit that can cause lasting ear damage.

Why do I bring this up? Because we in the AIDS community tend to act in the same way. We compete with each other on the volume of our shouts, rather than on their quality. We preach to the converted, just like the mosques, particularly in our increasingly shrill exchanges in our mail lists and forums. And, like the mosques, it all rises to a peak on specific days. At this time of year, our fax machine runs out of paper with all the invitations to events. If we attend, we'll find the participants are primarily 'same old, same old.' And many organizers will also be asking for us to arrange a 'rent-a-PLHIV' to present 'testimony' at the event. (My friend Wahyu says that his price for testimony is three million rupiah, but he's free if invited as a speaker.)

Happy World AIDS Day!

Babé