Misleading headline
I was shocked by your front page headline of Sunday Dec. 4, 1994. The implicit moral judgment in AIDS can affect the innocent discredits the fine articles by journalists Lenah Susianty and T. Sima Gunawan.
Such a headline perpetuates a moral distinction between those afflicted by this disease. No other disease is racked with such political, social and religious controversy.
Whoever is responsible for your front page headline could not have read or understood the reporters' articles, not the letter published that day.
The narrow minded assumption behind your headline is that there are guilty people who have AIDS, usually homosexuals, prostitutes and intravenous (IV) drug users and there are innocent people afflicted, usually children and people of a heterosexual inclination.
Just read the articles for goodness sake! If a poorly educated girl through desperate economic circumstances works just one year, one month, one week or one night on the street and is totally ignorant of condom use and is unfortunate enough to be infected, is she a guilty or innocent victim?
Does your sub-editor really think the number of men who insist on sex without condoms guilty, they surely are at risk themselves. If only they fully understood the risk to their health.
It does no good to think of guilty and innocent victims in this as in any other disease. Get your mind above the fact that unlike cancer and T.B., sex is involved.
Why not make a big deal about hepatitis which can be spread through sexual activity. We do not stigmatize hepatitis patients nor a person with a mouth ulcer, a strain of herpes.
The disease is perpetuated by unsafe sex practices as a result of lack of education. How can anyone be guilty if they don't know how they caught it and how they passed it on?
The use of language is delicate; isn't it strange that in Indonesia according to the front page article 70 percent of all HIV/AIDS patients come from the "low risk group." Isn't that contradictory -- the low risk category bears the greatest number of victims. What is low risk?
More education for everyone is required and more acceptance shown to those inflicted with the disease.
A better headline could have been: AIDS can affect you! or AIDS can affect everyone.
FRED STRAUGHEN
Jakarta