AIDS activist Green soldiers on

Emmy Fitri, The Jakarta Post, Bandung

Cordial and warm, that is the first impression of activist Chris W. Green. He speaks excellent Indonesian, and quickly says that he likes to be called babe (father in the Betawi language of native Jakartans) instead of Mr. Green or even pak Chris Green.

Sixty years old, Green has spent half his life in Indonesia -- a country he says he chose to stay in for no particular reason, except its tropical weather.

"I can't stand cold," said Green, who was born in London, speaking on the sidelines of an AIDS workshop.

Renowned as a tireless campaigner in the fight against AIDS, Green was once a fighter of another sort, serving in the British army in Malaysia. He said that Indonesia was among the countries in Asia that "never made denials that there were no HIV/AIDS cases and even the government also issued a presidential decree in 1995, while other Asian countries had not yet acknowledged the issues."

Of course, it's not a completely glowing report card for the government. HIV/AIDS, with its complex social and cultural issues, and the big taboo of sex, inevitably has the potential for stereotyping, for seeing people with AIDS as "them".

"I often hear officials who say that with iman and takwa (faith and devotion to God), we can avoid AIDS. That makes people think that those who get HIV/AIDS are not the kind of people that have faith and devotion to God," Green said, bursting into laughter.

With his deep concern about health issues, friends and fellow activists often address him as an "engineer" of medicine (he is an alumnus of the Loughborough College of Advanced Technology in England).

He began to educate himself about HIV/AIDS and related issues in 1991, after losing a friend to the disease. Four years later he established the Spiritia Foundation -- an Indonesian Network of People with HIV/AIDS -- together with activist Suzana Murni, who herself contracted HIV.

The foundation is a peer-group forum for people with HIV/AIDS (PWAs) to share and obtain information on the disease.

As his main concern was to befriend PWAs, Green, who is single, is among those who does not take for granted what textbooks told him.

"You can't not get emotionally involved, that's nonsense. For doctors or nurses, it is still possible, however, not to be personally involved with their patients," he said.

"For social workers like we who always have to befriend the PWAs through their fears and hopes, it is very unlikely that our emotions would not get involved. How can we share feelings with them if we do not have any sympathy or empathy for what they suffer?"

Working with PWAs means total immersion, getting involved with their daily lives and with their family, Green added.

He admitted that he often felt burnt-out -- "the job feels so frustrating when our friends are ailing or die" -- but the feeling is quickly overcome when he meets with more PWAs, giving them more information and updates on treatment.

"Too bad that most of the time, I meet those who are not given correct information. If the woman gets pregnant, she is told to abort the pregnancy. For me, if (getting pregnant) is their decision, why not? However, in this matter, there is the baby, which is not asked for its opinion before the decision is made," Green says deploringly.

In 1998, Green started to work on other issues, particularly injecting drug users, who are also at high risk of HIV/AIDS.

Collaborating with a number of nongovernmental groups, he recently launched an Indonesian translation of Guidelines for drug harm reduction (Pengurangan dampak buruk narkoba) which was originally issued by the Asian Harm Reduction Network (AHRN).

The booklet -- part of a more complete manual for reducing drug-related harm -- was launched in Jakarta and Denpasar.

Now he sees that the momentum has swung to the drug issue, and that many people have started to establish groups, are working in the field and there are more donations.

"I'll retire from the issue and return to AIDS," he said.

While others continue to turn their back on the issue of AIDS, choosing to look at it from the moral perspective instead of saving lives, Chris Green will keep soldiering on.