Absent bodies
‘Muslims & Christians ... where do we stand?’ (Eureka Street, September 2003) missed the quintessential point that Muslims and Catholics/Christians stand (yes so, still so) greatly divided by gender.
Sitting in the audience of this Jesuit Seminar Series I wondered how the religion and politics of the body could be ignored. Our patriarchal institutions have been tyrannised by fear of female sexuality since their inception. Why was the ignominy shared by Muslim and Catholic women denied ordination to the priesthood or to becoming an imam disregarded? Why were oppression, inequality, human rights and sharia law not defined in terms of their application in the lives of Muslim women? And that the enforced wearing of the hijab or burka, notwithstanding rationalisations, is to control sexual desire? And genital mutilation? An obscene and unforgivable abuse of human rights perpetrated to destroy female sexual pleasure. Girl births mourned in many Muslim societies, women blamed for rape, adultery, and so on.
The seminar kept our religious differences and similarities intellectual, gentlemanly and academic, in the head and out of the body. Kept it safe, kept it cosy and kept well away from the facts about where Muslim and Catholic women do stand.
Kerry Bergin
Camberwell, VIC
Keeping up the fight
Congratulations to Paul Sendziuk on his excellent coverage of the history of HIV/AIDS in Australia. ‘Denying the Grim Reaper’ (Eureka Street, October 2003) identifies the issues that people infected with HIV, as well as communities in which the virus is prevalent, have had to face in the past 20 years. Sadly, today many of these issues are still current.
In Victoria the annual number of AIDS diagnoses peaked at 203 in 1994 and fell to 44 in 2001. However the number of people contracting the HIV virus has increased in recent years. In 2001, 218 people were diagnosed with HIV, the highest annual number of notifications since 1994 and the number continued to rise in 2002 (234 notifications). This causes real concern and consternation amongst many with the illness as well as those who are aware that education and awareness around HIV/AIDS remains an important focus for the whole community. Yet the message seems lost on many young people and those faced with making choices that may put them at risk.
People who come to Catholic HIV/AIDS Ministry talk of:
• The prejudice and stigma that they still face as well as their very real fear that friends, neighbours and/or work colleagues will