BISHOP'S MESSAGE, June 2003

Blind Pilots

Billions of dollars have been spent on the so-called “war on terror” while virtually nothing has been spent trying to prevent the deaths of 6,000 children today, tomorrow and everyday.

Passengers on a small commuter plane are waiting for the flight to leave. They’re getting a little impatient, but the airport staff has assured them that the pilots will be here soon, and the flight will take off immediately after they arrive. The entrance opens, and two men dressed in pilots’ uniforms walk up the aisle; both are wearing dark glasses, one is using a seeing-eye dog, and the other is tapping his way with a cane. Nervous laughter spreads through the cabin; but the men enter the cockpit, the door closes, and the engines start up.

The passengers begin glancing nervously around, searching for some sign that this is just a little practical joke. None is forthcoming. The plane moves faster and faster down the runway, and people at the windows realize that they’re headed straight for the water at the edge of the airport territory. As it begins to look as though the plane will never take off, that it will plow into the water, panicked screams fill the cabin—but at that moment, the plane lifts smoothly into the air. The passengers relax and laugh a little sheepishly, and soon they have all retreated into their magazines, secure in the knowledge that the plane is in good hands. Up in the cockpit, the co-pilot turns to the pilot and says, “You know, Bob, one of these days, they’re going to scream too late, and we’re all going to die.”

The savage regime of Saddam Hussein and the slaughter of innocent people in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001, have repeatedly and rightly been condemned.

However, we so easily forget that on September 11, more than 6,000 children died from water-borne diseases like gastroenteritis. Billions of dollars have been spent on the so-called “war on terror” while virtually nothing has been spent trying to prevent the deaths of 6,000 children today, tomorrow and everyday.

Our pilots are blind! Maybe it’s not too late to scream: “Look at the real weapons of mass destruction!”

The real weapons of mass destruction in today’s world are HIV, AIDS, famine and starvation. In Africa alone these plagues have devastated the lives of more than 30 million people.

The HIV virus, now the leading cause of death in sub-Saharan Africa, is leaving an entire generation without parents. There are 660,000 HIV/AIDS orphans in South Africa, a figure that is set to rise to between 2 and 2.5 million by 2010 – a staggering one in every six children.

The infrastructure of community care—access to health care, treatment, affordable drugs, and support programs for the infected and affected children—on which hundreds of thousands depend is strained at the seams.

Many of South Africa’s AIDS orphans need to drop out of school to look after younger siblings; they often become unemployable, and plough families deeper into poverty.

So far, the AIDS orphans of South Africa have been unable to look to their government for leadership. President Thabo Mbeki has questioned the link between HIV and AIDS and the effectiveness of anti-retroviral treatments.

Someone has to scream about the global economic injustice—to systems of trade and subsidies which create international debt and prevent impoverished African nations rising out of fragile subsistence, and to the issue of debt repayments.

Furthermore, under the surface are cultural issues—the taboos, gender inequalities, and appalling levels of violence and sexual abuse directed at women and children. Central is gender inequality. Female genital mutilation, polygamy, arranged marriages, social approval of multiple sexual partners for men, and widow disinheritance are all factors placing people at high risk of AIDS.

These are deeply sensitive cultural issues, demanding great sensitivity and insight. A huge and sustained effort will be required to bring gender equality to center stage in the laws of the countries, in the family environment, in institutions, and in social relationships.

Our networking, lobbying and action at national and international level must be driven by the ethical and moral realisation of the infinite value of the life of a poor person. This life is not worth less than that of someone who can pay for what may be required to cope positively with an HIV status. Affordable drugs, the anti-retrovirals which can delay the onset of AIDS-related illnesses for years, are vital to prevent mother-to-child transmission; to keep HIV mothers alive as long as possible; and for the HIV population in general, who can begin to have some hope.

Nevertheless, for anti-retrovirals to take effect, the poverty, malnutrition and lack of sanitation that open the door to opportunistic infections must be tackled.

If a small fraction of the money that was spent on the war had been spent alleviating human suffering and hunger, many of the frustrations that contributed to the events of September 11 might have been eliminated. Such initiatives, born of human solidarity and compassion, would touch the lives of millions of people and make the world a much safer place for everyone.

Scream before it’s too late!