A Vote For Minister Murugi is a Vote for Human Rights

There are senior people who still hold powerful positions, despite facing trial in the International Criminal Court; there are some who have stolen money intended for internally displaced persons; others who have stolen food intended for the starving. Education, health and infrastructure funds have gone missing, having passed through the hads of the most powerful leaders in Kenya. Yet calls for the resignation of these powerful individuals are rarely heard.

But one minister calls for greater acceptance of gays by society and religious leaders want her to resign. The part that religious leaders have played in various scandals in Kenya is often quite unclear and it is alarming to hear that when someone in authority advocates greater tolerance, it is religious leaders who protest the loudest. Condemnation precludes the tolerance that they only seem to preach when it suits them.

The word 'promote' is often used in these contexts. In this instance, Minister Murugi is said to be promoting 'un-African' acts. Do people think the minister is recommending that everyone should try having sex with someone of the same gender? If the minister is promoting anything, it is that people accept that there are others who are different from them. And you don't have to be gay to be different. Difference can refer to gender, tribe, religion, politics, wealth and much else.

And there is another message I am hoping Ms Murugi would like to spread and that is the message of thinking independently. Since when have churches and religious leaders adequately represented the interests of ordinary people? Religious leaders are apart from ordinary people, they are often rich, pampered, treated with deference and hold themselves aloof from everyone else. Ordinary people need to get by on their own resources, or what's left after the religious leaders have got their share.

Kenyans pay dearly with their hard earned cash, and in countless other ways, to keep religious leaders comfortable. But these religious leaders are not in those comfortable positions so that they can tell people how to live their lives. They are, from an ethical point of view, on a level with other people. Some may fall far below, some may live admirable lives. But it is not their place to judge, nor to command, only to advise, support and nurture.

This may even be a good time to renegotiate, or at least reconsider, the role that religious leaders play in people's lives and in the running of their country.

Minister Murugi has done what she was elected to do. What would people prefer? That they sack her and replace her with someone else, who will usurp a role of arbiter of good behavior and executioner of punishments for those who fall out of line? It's almost as if Kenyans want leaders who behave as they wish to but expect their electorate always to fall in line and never, never criticize what their leaders may get up to.

The current situation leads to a lot of fear, violence and discrimination. Is that what Kenyans want? There are few leaders in this country who have made any change for the better and, I agree, change for the better is difficult. But Minister Murungi has tried to make a change that might, eventually, make things better for a very significant minority. And in standing up for one minority, a precedent will have been set for other minorities. Causes that once seemed lost may be won, in time.

Every Kenyan should be calling for Minister Murugi to hold firm in her advocacy of greater acceptance of gays in society. People should be telling their religious leaders that they are overstepping their authority. Indeed, they are perverting their authority by failing to uphold tolerance and instead, spreading intolerance and possibly fanning violence and crime. Every Kenyan stands to gain from greater tolerance. Nor need one be gay to benefit from recognition of the legitimacy of difference, whether that difference be sexual, racial, political or anything else.

Political and Religious Leaders Overseeing the Spread of HIV

There's an interesting article on Aidsmap.com about how Ugandans who think they may be HIV positive are less likely to refer other family members for HIV testing. In a survey, people were asked before testing if they thought they were likely to be HIV positive. A majority said they thought they were likely to be. Of course, only some of them were. But most of those who are HIV positive in the country do not know their status. This doesn't bode well for a country that is said to have been so successful and progressive in its fight against the disease.

The very people who are most likely to be HIV positive are least likely to go for testing. So you would think that the Ugandan government would aim to target these people, make it easier for them to get tested, increase access to HIV facilities, reduce discrimination and stigma. Instead, the government is going in the opposite direction, trying to whip up anti gay feelings and making such strong threats against people even suspected of being gay that most people will be less willing to find out their HIV status, whatever their circumstances.

The Bahati Bill will make a lot of people avoid even discussing HIV or sexuality because if someone is found to be gay, HIV positive and sexually active, they will face the death sentence. In order to cover up their sexuality, many gay people are said to have heterosexual relationships, even to marry a heterosexual partner. Their partner will even face a lengthy prison sentence for not reporting that they were married to a gay person. Currently, only an estimated one quarter of HIV positive people know their status. If this bill becomes law, that figure should go down even further.

Some leading American Christians are said to be behind Bahati's bill. But the Catholic church is equally adamant that condoms shouldn't be used to prevent unplanned pregnancy, HIV or other sexually transmitted infections. They even lie about the effectiveness of condoms, which would seem to be in breach of the ninth commandment. But as far as they are concerned, it is 'artificial contraception', and therefore immoral. The use of condoms is currently being debated in The Philippines, where HIV prevalence is low, but rising.

You would think that political and church leaders would aim to reduce transmission of HIV and to stamp out stigma and discrimination. But, on the contrary, they seem to be against any measures that target some of the most significant channels to HIV infection. We must look beyond political and religious leadership if we are to have any hope of making progress in the fight against HIV.

Homophobia is the Problem, Not Homosexuality

Rabid homophobia continues in Kenya and is being actively promoted by political and religious leaders. Police had to 'rescue' three men accused of being gay in a coastal town. When you are 'rescued' by Kenyan police, you know you are in trouble. There was also a case of two men said to be getting married being arrested by police after neighbours complained about them being 'notorious gays'. Meanwhile, a Muslim and a Christian leader are united in their opposition to their town being turned into 'Sodom and Gomorrah'.

These religious leaders feel that if gays are not persecuted, their community will be 'doomed'. This is odd, because Kenya currently faces numerous instances of massive criminal acts being carried out by the country's most powerful and wealthy people. The country is, in a sense, already doomed. At least, a lot of people's lives are doomed.

Hundreds of millions of dollars of funding for education, HIV and internally displaced persons have been stolen, the people behind the post election violence have yet to be tried and will probably never be punished, the power sharing government is a farce, the constitution promised in the first hundred days of 2003 is as far away as ever, millions are facing starvation while donated food is being stolen by politicians and surpluses are being destroyed because of lack of storage facilities. The list goes on and on.

Facing these conditions, why are religious and political leaders so obsessed with homosexual activity? They seem to think that the practice of men having sex with men or women having sex with women is going to turn the heads of heterosexuals and make them into homosexuals too. They imagine that same sex practices are un-African and that they didn't exist before being 'imported' by colonials.

They see homosexuality as a crime but who are its victims? The victims of corrupt politicians, church leaders, police, businesspeople, both foreign and indigenous, are clear enough. Most Kenyans are victims of the excesses of the wealthy and powerful. But who are the victims of the 'crime' of homosexuality?

Of course, there are victims of rape and sexual assault. But perpetrators of sex crimes are already covered by the law. It's just that these laws are not usually upheld, especially when the crimes are carried out by the rich and powerful. The police, who are so quick to go after people who are accused of being gay, are not usually interested in ordinary everyday crime, unless they happen to be involved in it themselves.

Just why is the public so ready to become a baying mob of vigilantes when their target is a defenceless individual or group of individuals? They would achieve a lot more by objecting to the real criminals in this country but the most they do is complain about them. Not that I'm advocating mob justice, but there seems to be no sense of proportion in people's reactions to crimes.

Meanwhile, a politician in Uganda, Otto Odonga, has said he would agree to be the executioner even if the person being tried for homosexuality was his own son. Another politician there seems to think bisexuality is something that has been 'imported' into Africa. But thankfully, at the same meeting, someone else said that he had seen homosexual activity when he was young and that it was not a new thing. Like in Kenya, people in Uganda seem content to be living in one of the poorest countries in the world, made poorer by greedy leaders, as long as they can let loose their mob law against homosexuals or those thought to be homosexuals.

Interestingly, the Ugandan politician who wants to introduce draconian laws against homosexual activity, even against those who witness or know about homosexuality (or who are suspected of witnessing or knowing about it), David Bahati, thinks that everyone is susceptible to being turned into a homosexual. This means that it is possible for him or his friends, colleagues or family members to be 'made into' a homosexual, given the right influences. This seems like a very odd for a homophobe to hold.

What these Kenyan and Ugandan politicians should really be asking about is where the homophobia was imported from. Homosexuality exists in every country and always has, as far as anyone knows. You can't 'import' it. But homophobia is actively encouraged by religious groups, especially extreme right wing Christians. Several prominent American Christians and Christian groups are said to have been backing Bahati and people like him. No doubt they will support anyone who promotes their bigotry. Homophobia is the curse that Kenyans and Ugandans should be worried about, not homosexuality.

Speaking from Inexperience...

An old and extremely rich German wearing funny clothes and a bizarre hat who, ostensibly, has neither knowledge nor experience of sex or sexuality, is going to the UK to share his outdated, uninformed, biased and bigoted views on homosexuality with anyone there who is still prepared to listen to the current pope. One of his defenders says he is only saying what his followers believe about this subject, but that doesn't wash. He is supposed to be a leader and I think he has made his views pretty clear on other occasions.

The pope feels that recent legislation in the UK runs counter to natural law. What 'natural law' is he talking about? Is he talking about the findings of a scientific community or some community of experts or is he merely using a meaningless phrase that anyone can use to support whatever prejudice they happen to be hawking? My question is merely rhetorical, by the way. I could claim that it runs counter to natural law to abstain from sex (or to purport to) but the fact that having sex is natural to many people does not preclude others from deciding to abstain. This is not because there is any 'natural law' involved, it's just that people are entitled to decide for themselves.

Such laws as the ones the pope is complaining about, the Equality Bill and the like, do not "impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs". They have no bearing on religious communities doing anything except things that are already illegal, such as discriminating against others on the grounds of their sexual orientation, for example. I would hate to have to list for the pope the excesses that have been perpetrated over the centuries by religious communities and the lengths that his colleagues have gone to in order to allow such excesses to continue, despite their being proscribed by (positive) law.

Religious communities acting in accordance with their religious beliefs, whatever that happens to mean, doesn't itself sound like something governed by 'natural law'. Or perhaps the pope would claim otherwise. Perhaps some religions are more natural than others. Perhaps having no religion is 'unnatural', at least, according to natural law. But to be frank, the pope's defender seems to have to resort to meaningless arguments to defend his boss. For example "[the pope] wants his reasoned voice – formed by the treasures of the Christian heritage which is deeply embedded in our culture – he wants that voice to be heard", etc, blah blah.

The current pope follows a long line of popes who have done everything they can to perpetuate various forms of bigotry and discrimination. I'm surprised he is intending to spread his vitriol in the UK, where I imagined most people to be fairly unswayed by any particular religion. But he has certainly done a lot of damage in African countries he visited. Perhaps he hopes for the same level of 'success' elsewhere. The man seems to have little respect for concepts like human rights and democracy and I hope he gets an appropriate reception, wherever he goes.

Religion and Health: Interference or Complementarity

Following my speculations about why some people seem to imagine that they can be made very rich by a miracle, a friend sent me an article entitled Religion, Spirituality, and Medicine. This article is a "comprehensive, though not systematic, review of the empirical evidence and ethical issues" and concludes that "the evidence of an association between religion, spirituality, and health is weak and inconsistent".

Perhaps more importantly, the authors question the ethics of mixing religion and medicine, a question that would still arise even if there was stronger evidence of an association between religion and health. One could ask, which religion would a doctor recommend or agree to discuss? What would they do with someone who didn't believe in any religion? Would each medical professional require special training and what kind of special training? (The authors of the paper did not raise all these questions, but they arise from considering the problems of combining medicine with religion).

Even if people go to a doctor without any expectation that the doctor is, to a large extent, a scientist, that doctor is obliged to do things that are supported by scientific evidence and avoid things that are not so supported. The fields of science and religion are completely different and the practitioners of each field work in different ways. Is it even feasible for doctors to also become experts in religion (as if religion were just one thing!)?

If I was renting a damp room that affected my health badly, should my doctor write a letter to my landlord and ask for my conditions to be improved? Medical advice could be brought to bear on an employer who was exposing me to health risks, but this is a matter for employment laws. The doctor doesn't intervene directly. Yet we know that environmental conditions are closely connected with people's health. We know that economic circumstances are closely connected with people's health but we don't expect our doctor to recommend a pay rise. Even government health advice about healthy eating is considered to be taking things too far by some.

I accept that certain beliefs can be comforting and I certainly wouldn't suggest that people should be told what to believe and what not to believe or how to express their beliefs. If they see praying as part of their recovery from illness or as helpful in bearing an illness from which they will not recover, no one has the right to interfere. But when it comes to prescribing medication, the doctor is the expert, not the religious leader. And when it comes to praying and giving religious advice, the religious leader is the expert.

In fact, I find it exasperating that there are many churches in developing countries who don't seem to be able to make that distinction. They feel they are experts in marriage, reproduction, sexual behaviour and protecting against sexually transmitted infections (STI). They are not experts, generally they know even less than lay people and should certainly have less experience. If you can't persuade someone to give up having sex or sex outside marriage, the least you can do is tell them how to avoid becoming infected with an STI, infecting someone else with one or giving rise to an unplanned pregnancy. Otherwise, these leaders are failing to do what they can to prevent serious consequences.

If religious leaders wish to give medical advice, they had better know what they are talking about. As for advice about sexual behaviour, contraception and reducing the spread of STIs and unwanted pregnancies, many don't seem to have had a lot of success and should leave the job to someone who has the appropriate knowledge and training. In the same token, doctors should discuss religious matters with patients if they feel able to do so and if they are requested to do so but it should never be seen as a type of medical care or treatment.

If someone has a particular set of religious beliefs, presumably they hold those beliefs regardless of their health or lack of health. It seems unlikely that they just 'adopt' those beliefs in the hope that they will get well. Whether someone is religious or not, some will suffer illnesses and injuries and all will die eventually. If the 'belief' is purely conditional on their health, the person's piety would be quite questionable. So I don't see why a religious person would be interested in whether religion is in any way connected with health outcomes in the first place.

Poverty Breeds Religion? Religion Breeds Poverty? Both?

Firstly, I must make it clear that I don't mean to appear biased, that I am just writing from my point of view. But this is hard for me. I have no problem questioning the motives of very powerful people like Bill Gates or the ethics of multinational industries, such as pharmaceuticals or biotechnology or even those of international institutions, such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or UNAIDS. But when it comes to talking about the ordinary people that I meet and interact with every day, I realise I could sound like I'm making some pretty unwarranted assumptions.

I am trying to understand certain things here (in the world, but also in Kenya), that's partly why I'm here. I think that we in the Western world, people and institutions and practices and other entities, do a lot to impoverish people in developing countries. I have argued the point on many occasions and will do so in the future. My whole concept of 'Development by Omission' is based on many instances of this very phenomenon. But I also wonder why some people seem to choose certain kinds of impoverishment or choose not to do things that are well within their capability that may raise their living standards and those of their dependents.

Rather than giving lots of examples, though there are many, I'd like to concentrate on one. I wonder if people who see their situation as desperate turn to what can be a very extreme adherence to some religion. I'm thinking especially of Christianity, in particular the more evangelical ones, though they all seem to be evangelical here. Some people give money they can ill afford to a church, some give it to a pastor. Some even give everything they have got in the hope that a miracle will change their lives. Many pastors and churches encourage these beliefs, it's how they make their money. However, all churches depend on donations for most of their income (or wealth).

Belief in miracles seems to be very widespread, not that miracles can occur, but that anyone and everyone may well have their lives transformed if they just pray a lot and, of course, send lots of money to churches and pastors who claim to be able to make this a reality. Even if I believed that miracles can occur, I don't accept that you can simply wish them to occur, pray for them to occur and least of all pay for them to occur.

I don't see people's wish to have their lives transformed, even their wish to be very rich, as greed. I think if I had nothing I might be more likely to want a lot than I would be to want just enough. Perhaps it's because I've had enough for so long and generally find that fine, a lot would be great, but it's unlikely to feel that much better than enough. I don't wish to preach (God forbid!), I'd love to have an income or, at least, the guarantee that I will one day have an income. But for now, I'm getting by. But I'm not just talking about what people wish for, which can be indefinitely great; I'm talking about what some people seem to sincerely believe they may one day attain.

Greed is what we see in the pastors and churches themselves who extort money out of poor people with promises of great wealth. Greed is what we see in the people who spread misleading information about pyramid schemes and the like and thereby prey on poor people. Greed is the biotechnology multinationals, who want people to think they are getting a good deal when they are in fact entering a form of indentured slavery. Greed is the pharmaceutical companies who keep their prices artificially high and lobby governments of rich countries, who obligingly use public money to subsidise these products and call it aid.

Desperation could be one reason for turning to a religion, even believing quite irrational things or accepting irrational interpretations of the bible. But maybe there are many reasons. Many terrible things are being done every day in the name of religion but maybe only some of them are meant to be terrible. The people running a 'children's home' we came across recently may well believe they are following the word of the bible. They certainly say they are. True, they have stolen most of the donations to the home and put the lives of many children at risk, but it is vaguely possible they started out trying to do something good, while at the same time making enough money to keep their own households and send their children to (relatively expensive) schools.

Perhaps there is just a lot of religious fervour in Kenya, for various interpretations of the bible, for various different churches and for various different religious personalities, perhaps it's not desperation at all. But similarly irrational beliefs seem to be held about foreign people and how rich they all are and how they just come here to give out money. Ok, some foreigners do that, but several times every week, sometimes several times in the day, I am asked for money, often by people who have asked me many times before. And I know others who have had the same experience.

Some people seem to believe that if only they could get a scholarship or if only someone would sponsor them to go to Europe or the US (or somewhere else) or if someone would set them up in business, or if they would marry them, they would be ok, they would be very happy. Maybe people everywhere believe these things, I don't know, maybe people here are just more honest about it. But I think there is a difference between wishing for something and actually expecting it to happen.

Is it desperation that fuels this apparent devotion (or whatever it is)? Or does devotion to the belief that material wealth will be thrust upon all those who pray enough or give enough to pastors and churches or ask enough foreigners keep people from doing things to change their own circumstances? They could question preachers who keep promising them what is just material wealth. They could question where all the money they give goes to when they are poor and the preachers are wealthy, often staggeringly wealthy. I'm not saying there is work aplenty for everyone, sadly, there is not. And though there is wealth enough for everyone those who have most of it, and they are few, are not likely to part with it quickly.

I don't feel I'm much closer to understanding people's seemingly pathological attachment to religion, miracles, pastors and churches. Biased I may be, but I blame churches, not for poverty, but for influencing people in such a way that many people here behave quite irrationally. I blame religion for people's apparent belief that, although they can do nothing to change their own situation, someone, God, rich people, pastors or someone else, can make their lives better. I think the evidence is fairly clear that there is no one who will help most people except those people themselves. But then, when has evidence or experience ever had much impact on religion?

'Religiosity' and Levels of Social Capital

The work continues with Ribbon of Hope Self Help Group, Nakuru, in Kenya's Rift Valley. We have ongoing projects producing basic foods such as vegetables and staples, dairy cattle and hens, etc. And we are still hoping to spread the word about ways of saving money by using solar cookers and home made fuel briquettes for cooking and various other techniques. Any project that costs very little or nothing will be considered as long as it is appropriate for people in this area and as long as it is sustainable and not destructive or damaging in any way.

As usual, some people are cooperative and hard working, otherwise, there would be no point in an organisation such as Ribbon of Hope. But sometimes it seems as if there are as many obstructive people as there are constructive people and it can be hard not to dwell on them. Especially when they so often win out and destroy projects that would have worked well without their interference. Today, we had the experience of trying to find out why some people abandoned their basic accounting and record keeping several months ago and now seem both unable and unwilling to say how they have been running their organisation.

It would be unreasonable to expect everyone to be equally successful in their endeavours and it is natural for some people to get involved initially, only to step back later and contribute less than before. But, much though I'd like to think that there are more cooperative than destructive people here, the evidence suggests that this is not true. I'm sure there are all sorts of possible explanations and I would be the first to admit that the people we work with live under all sorts of stresses and pressures that can make them a bit desperate. But I'm not going to make excuses for some of the things I've seen and heard about. I'll just hope that in the long run there are more positives than negatives and that Ribbon of Hope manages to attract serious contributors rather than time and resource wasting people.

There is a very interesting 'index' called The Legatum Prosperity Index, which aims to look at prosperity beyond the one dimensional Gross Domestic Product (GDP) favoured by so many economic analyses. The index looks at various economic figures, politics and governance, education, health, security, personal freedom and social capital. The whole index seems skewed by what are almost exclusively Western values but it's still an interesting exercise and their report is well worth the read.

Kenya doesn't come out very well, scoring 95 overall out of 104 countries for which there was adequate data available. This is not to say that Kenya's data is particularly reliable but let's give it the benefit of the doubt. The country receives a pretty low score for almost all the various indexes and rankings available. Economically, the country is weak in many ways and is particularly dependent on raw materials. Education, health, governance, personal freedom and security rankings are very poor. Surprisingly, the country is said to have well developed democratic institutions.

But the real shocker for me is that the country is ranked 25th for its level of social capital; 'most Kenyans find others to be reliable and some actively volunteer or help strangers'. Sadly, some people who 'volunteer' only do so for what they can get out of it. Apparently Kenya's social capital score is 'boosted by exceptionally high levels of religiosity'. Well, that's certainly no surprise. But many of the people who profess the loudest to be Christian, Saved, Born Again or whatever else are the ones who never miss an opportunity to get something by deceit.

I think this element of the Prosperity Index begs the question about whether high levels of religiosity is an indication that Kenya is strong on social capital. The police and other officials who require a standard bribe in order to do what is just their job are often as ostentatiously religious as anyone else. An official who tried to get a 50 dollar bribe out of me asked me to pray for him when he found I wasn't going to pay. The people who dress up for church on Sundays overlap with the mob that crowded around a young homeless boy to beat him for some offence, real or imagined. This sort of mob rule, usually aimed at very vulnerable people, such as elderly people branded as 'witches' or homeless people branded as thieves, is very common. Some of the 'volunteers' I have met never miss an opportunity to mention their love for Jesus but nor do they miss an opportunity to get something that is intended for sick and dying people.

This is not an attempt to bash the 'religious' people of Kenya or of any other country, just a question about what kind of connection there is between 'high levels of religiosity' and high levels of social capital. Reluctant as I am to come to this conclusion, I would say that social capital is one of the things that Kenya is most sorely lacking in. And this lack of social capital has had, and continues to have, a profound influence on high levels of HIV, sexually transmitted infections (STI), unplanned pregnancies, stigma, discrimination and probably many other problems.

Fresh Perspectives on HIV from Rhonda, Nakuru

Photo: Sand quarries in Rhonda, Nakuru. Everything is done by hand.

Yes, I thought of Wales too. Apparently the whole area was once 'owned' by someone from the UK, perhaps that person was Welsh. It is a mining area. Sand, used for building, is mined here. It's very gritty sand, broken down volcanic rock. The whole area is covered in the softest, finest dust. It billows around your feet as you walk. But it gets into everything, your lungs, eyes, mouth...

But we were in Rhonda to meet some people who receive home based care. They are HIV positive people so they need help with food supplementation, drugs, hospital visits, household items and the like. Most of the people we visited were happy to be on antiretroviral treatment, happy to be surviving with HIV. Some complained about problems paying the rent, being able to buy enough food and things like that. But even some people who are well and employed are having these problems.

One person in particular shared his own, very interesting perspective on HIV. He is a pastor and was articulate in English and Kiswahili. He said that he accepted having HIV rather than some other illness because with HIV, you don't just sicken and die. Rather, you have time to help other people with HIV, to help other people to avoid HIV, to live a full and active life.

This man was only diagnosed as being HIV a few years ago, when he was already very sick. He was in a coma for two weeks, he then recovered and could get around in a wheelchair. Gradually he went from there to using crutches, then a walking stick and now he can walk a bit, unaided. After he spoke to us he was due to give a sermon.

His mother also had an interesting perspective. She reminded us that she stuck by her son and continues to stick by him, looking after his every need now that he is able bodied, just as she did when he was in a coma. And, despite the fact that her son is a pastor, this woman said she thought that some of the churches use the existence of HIV to make a lot of money. She was not criticizing all churches, just some that do more fundraising than distribution.

How to Save a Failing Church

A Nigerian bishop, the Archbishop of Ibadan, recently became one of the many defenders of the pope’s infamously garbled pronouncement on condoms. The fact that the pope’s statement was garbled makes it easy for people to either reinterpret it in a favourable light or in an unfavourable light, whatever suits their purposes. But the problem is that the statement did not give the sort of clarity that many people seek.

Previously, the pope has opposed the use of condoms under any circumstances and advocated abstinence and fidelity as a response to the HIV pandemic. Christians sought clarification because they felt that abstinence and fidelity were great in theory but were not feasible for many people. And even if they were achievable for some, they were not necessarily achievable for their partners, for sex workers, for victims of sexual assault, etc.

Some Catholics and Christians went even further and preached that condoms had holes that allowed HIV virus through or that condoms are very unreliable or that they often burst.

So the guidance that people received from the church ranged from unfeasible to vague to untrue. It’s little wonder that Catholics and Christians were left to do what most of them have been doing for generations: using their own interpretation and doing the best they could.

But there are people who take what they hear from church leaders rather more literally, either because they feel that’s what it is to be a Catholic or Christian or because that particular course of action suits them. So there are people who waited till they were married before having sex only to be infected by their partner. Others ended up with more children than they could provide for. Others didn’t have any choice about whether to have sex, when or with whom.

The Nigerian bishop claims that the pope’s statement is about people’s sexual behaviour and that people’s sexual behaviour is behind the HIV pandemic. But if the bishop (and the pope) were to think about it a little more carefully, they would see that sexual behaviour does not occur in a vacuum. People’s behaviour and sexual behaviour are determined by other circumstances. Just as TB is airborne, you don’t prevent transmission of TB by telling people to stop breathing, so you won’t reduce HIV transmission by merely trying to legislate over people’s sexual behaviour.

For example (and it is only one example), there are many women who have no option but to have sex in exchange for money or other benefits, because they have no job or because they have too low an income; they are desperate and need the money immediately; they don’t want to have sex with strange men and expose themselves to all sorts of dangers, they have no option. Do the church leaders understand any of this?

Some women find that if they apply for jobs they have to pay a substantial amount of money to secure a position. Others find that they are expected to sleep with their boss in order to be selected for a job, to keep a job or to improve their income, sometimes very slightly. Is this even a viable alternative to commercial sex work? I don’t think so.

So if church leaders are concerned about people’s behaviour, sexual or otherwise, they should take a look at people’s circumstances, the way people live. No matter how devout people are, they need to provide for their family, for their dependents and for themselves. To criticize the pope and other church leaders for failing to see this is not polemic. Preachings that are manufactured in one of the richest states in the world have little relevance to the lives of people in the poorest states in the world.

Church leaders, firstly, take a look at the realities of people’s lives, engage with the real problems, not the ones you wish to prognosticate over; secondly, make your prognostications clear and unambiguous; thirdly, engage with debates honestly, don’t resort to the lies and fabrication which you have relied on for so long.

If you want the respect and obedience of your followers you have to earn it.

The Nigerian bishop also makes a comment about Africa being used as “a guinea pig of foreign business ventures”. This is a valid point but Africa is just as much a ‘market’ and a ‘business venture’ for the churches, too. The churches also come up with slogans and marketing campaigns because they are also businesses who stand to gain or lose large amounts of money. They compete with other business, though they may see themselves as being above business and commerce.

Finally, the bishop makes the often made remark about distributing condoms increasing the “sexual waywardness of the continents’ [sic] youth who have access to it” and promoting “sexual recklessness”. Despite the claims of various churches, distributing condoms, teaching children about sex and safe sex and various other measures, does not give rise to higher levels of unsafe sexual behaviour. On the contrary, children who know about sex and safe sex delay having sex for the first time and are more likely to take precautions when they do have sex.

If the churches really have compassion, if they really care about the welfare of their followers, they need to look at how people live, how their behaviour and sexual behaviour are determined. Human dignity is not about doctrine and dogma, it is about basic human rights. People are being denied their rights and the church would do well to address this issue, rather than shoring up their dubious philosophies with pseudo scientific claptrap.

Of course, church leaders could lead by example, observing vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, for instance. But many seem to have chosen to live in wealth. Their chastity has often been open to question. And their obedience often appears to be to political interests, commercial interests and even human desires for power, sexual gratification, etc, rather than to any spiritual authority.

Church leaders, come and live like the majority of human beings and you’ll find yourselves rewriting your vast tomes in a language that most people will readily understand.

Abstinence: the Immaculate Contraception

Why is abstinence not proposed as a strategy to reduce alcohol or drug dependency? How about obesity as a result of overeating? Perhaps it’s because if those with a dependency could abstain, they wouldn’t have a dependency. Ok, some people manage to give up drugs, alcohol or overeating. That takes a lot of work and a lot of help and support. Some succeed and some don’t.

Why is abstinence not proposed as a strategy to reduce crime? Instead of having laws, why not just have a campaign to get potential criminals to vow to abstain from crime? They should know that crime is wrong and that they will be punished if they are caught. I think the answer is obvious.

But a certain Mr Pope, a man without an electoral mandate or, indeed, without any experience of sexual intercourse or sexual relationships, thinks that abstinence is the only way to avoid HIV. Well, Mr Pope, you’re quite wrong. In Nyanza province in Kenya, women are more likely to contract HIV from their husbands. Husbands also contract HIV from their wives.

Yes, both parties should abstain, of course. Everyone ‘should’ abstain, but abstinence does not protect anyone from sexual desire. One party in a relationship abstaining does not ensure that the other party also abstains.

Abstinence is an individual decision but most sexual relationships require more than one person. The issue is not about individual duties and responsibilities but rather the duties and responsibilities of people who live in close contact with other people. Each person’s life is to a large extent determined by external influences. Human behaviour and sexual desire do not arise in individuals in isolation, they arise in individuals living with other individuals.

Those external (or non individual) influences determine many things, including when, where, how often and with whom people have sexual relationships. An individual’s decision to abstain doesn’t protect them from HIV because their HIV status is also influenced by factors external to them.

As for the individual decision to abstain, well, I certainly don’t decide to do things that would put me in danger. I am fairly risk averse, I don’t enjoy pain or dangerous activities. But just as the absence of safe water and food supply would not make me any less thirsty or hungry, the relative dangers of sleeping with another person would not decrease the sexual desire I may feel.

If a person doesn’t feel much sexual desire or their desire is outweighed by other considerations, there may be no problem. If they get to decide whether to have sex and with whom, great, they are lucky. But there are many people who are not in that position, for one reason or another. Even in the Catholic Church, people are often in positions where they will have sex, whether they choose to or not.

Abstinence does not guarantee against harm because an individual decision to abstain from sex does not preclude something arising to override that decision. Nor does it guarantee that others will respect the individual decision to abstain.

But, quite frankly, I don’t want to abstain. I think that I have a right to have consensual sex with another adult. I don’t think Mr Pope agrees, but I just don’t subscribe to his views. I don’t feel the need to repress my sexual desire in order to follow his blind dogma. And I know that the absence of the opportunity to engage in sexual activity does not result in sexual desire just disappearing.

So if abstinence is not always going to work, what other options for harm reduction are there? Condoms sound like an obvious harm reduction strategy against sexually transmitted infections. Mr Pope advocates against using condoms because it is ‘wrong’. But Mr Pope and his adherents have defended many things that would also be considered wrong, so I don’t really see where his authority comes from.

Actually, that’s where my argument becomes seriously unstuck. Millions of Africans (and other people around the world) invest authority in Mr Pope and his acolytes. In Kenya and Tanzania, people constantly talk about Jesus, God, their religion, the bible, various quotations and proverbs and titbits of ‘knowledge’ from religious sources.

Mr Pope speaks for millions of people because they pay millions of pounds to support him and his religious prognostications. But beware, Mr Pope, you have many followers who go to your churches and contribute towards the obscene amounts of money you receive, but they don’t abstain. HIV rates are usually higher among those claiming to be Christian than among other religious groups.

I don’t see why Mr Pope’s religious teachings should have such a profound bearing on public health. He clearly knows nothing about public health, but that’s understandable. What I find difficult to understand is his lack of understanding about human behaviour. Even if he doesn’t feel sexual desire or if he feels it’s something he should deal with in other ways than sexual behaviour, why does he think that everyone else should feel the same way. Why does he think that others are able to behave as he does?

Mr Pope, whether you want to hear it or not; abstinence as a strategy does not work. Even if you are not interested in the many studies carried out that show that abstinence as a strategy does not work, you must be able to see that millions of your followers are infected with HIV and millions more will become infected.

I stand to be corrected on this but I think suicide is also considered wrong in the Catholic faith? Is a strategy that is known to fail to protect against HIV not suicidal? By preaching against the use of condoms and advocating abstinence, are you not in danger of increasing what is effectively suicidal behaviour, Mr Pope?