(So, I'm not entirely sure if this is what this blog is after, but here it goes)
This New York Times article details Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Cameroon last Tuesday. In Cameroon's capital, Yaounde, the Pope gave a speech about the Vatican's role in fighting AIDS in Africa. 22 million people in Africa are affected by the disease, according to UNAIDS, two-thirds of all people living with the disease, and home to three-quarters of all AIDS deaths last year. The picture to the right is from the blog "Indigenous People's Rights Today," and shows what percentage of each country's population has either AIDS or is HIV positive. The Pope, however, stated:
"You can't resolve it with the distribution of condoms, on the contrary, it increases the problem."
He went on to say the Vatican wanted to take a major role in the fight against AIDS, but "a responsible and moral attitude toward sex" will help Africa with its AIDS problem more than contraceptives.
What?
This kind of ideology-based international interaction will not solve Africa's AIDS problem any more than the US forcing democracy on a factioned Iraq will end sectarian violence there or blindly protecting Taiwan against Chinese agression because it is a democracy will solve tension between China and the US or China and Taiwan. Cultural, moral and ideological solutions will never have the effect as more pragmatic approaches to international relations. Toward the Vatican's policy, Rebecca Hodes, the director of policy, communication and research at the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa, said:
''Instead, his opposition to condoms conveys that religious dogma is more important to him than the lives of Africans,''
The Vatican's paternalistic, condescending stance toward AIDS in Africa will not help the people of Africa the way that practical solutions would. International Relations should not be a forum for projecting what one culture considers "moral" or "right" onto another, and adhering to ideology when dealing with international problems will not help the populations involved. The US especially has used ideology as a guiding principle in international relations for too long. Take the Iraq war, for an example. Trying to force the Iraqi population into US ideology has not, so far, been able to quell sectarian violence. Maybe instead we should focus on building infrastructure and economic development in order to extablish the kind of multi-party democracy that could assure each group they would have a say in the government, just like investments in education and birth control in Africa could help the people there beat AIDS faster than abstinence-only advice. But that's just my opinion.
Posts
