Speaking out against AIDS discrimination

Speaking out against AIDS discrimination

JAKARTA (JP): Tonight, a candle is lit -- for you, for friends
with shared feelings and for those who have already preceded us.
These are the words from a poem titled Together Building Hope,
written by Suzana Murni and recited from memory by Rachmawati
from Bandungwangi, who works for a sex worker cooperative in
North Jakarta.

There were perhaps 100 of us crammed into a small youth center
meeting hall in Warakas, one of the poorest areas of Jakarta,
close by the port. Beside members of the local youth group and
Bandungwangi, there were also several representatives from the
local branch of the Family Welfare Movement.

The district head, (lurah), was there as guest of honor,
together with several of the local community heads. We were all
there in solidarity with thousands of others around the globe who
would be commemorating the 17th International AIDS Candlelight
Memorial on the same day. We had just lit our candles, and the
room hushed as Rachmawati continued reciting.

I witness in my mind's eye as your body is wrapped in plastic/
while your soft blanket that I recognize is thrown into a hot
flame ... She, like many of us, can no longer control the tears,
which roll down her cheeks. Although I have heard this poem read
a hundred times, it always has the same effect on me.

Earlier, another speaker asked why it was that, even when we
now all know how HIV is -- and is not -- spread, only last month
the body of a person who died of AIDS in Jakarta was sent to a
crematorium nailed into a simple coffin, the body unwashed and
wrapped in plastic while still in hospital robes. It is this kind
of inhumanity and indignity which triggered the first Candlelight
Memorial in 1983. Surely after 20 years of the epidemic, we
should have learned?

Tonight I light this candle for you/ for all the meaning that
you gave me of life and love. The poem takes on a brighter note,
but Rachmawati's tears still fall. Later we will all join
together to sing a song written many years ago by James F. Sundah
for children, Little Candles. This simple song was "adopted" by
The Candlelight in Indonesia in 1996, and is now sung at every
commemoration.

What drove the Warakas youth group to organize this
commemoration? And the others to attend? Few if any have had any
direct contact with AIDS. So far, it has hardly touched their
community. It's a question I often find myself asking as, once
more, Indonesia is listed with the second highest number of
groups participating in The Candlelight, not far behind the U.S.

Somehow our candles unite us with other groups with similar
aims -- like Bandungwangi. We all see in AIDS a reflection of the
ills sweeping through our society, the intolerance, suspicion,
violence toward women and children, and the strife which has
engulfed so many parts of the country.

Such ills so often form a fertile breeding ground in which the
AIDS epidemic develops.

Embrace love which makes us feel strong and willing to face
all challenges;/ love's miracle that lives on because life is
indeed precious.

The poem ends. Silence. You cannot applaud that type of
performance, those words. The strains of the Little Candles
brings us all back down to earth as we start singing with all our
hearts.

--Chris W. Green