DREADWELCOME: HIV/AIDS, Immigration, Australia & The United States
[UPDATE] Polish Education Minister, Roman Giertych, calls for a ban on the 'promotion of homosexuality, pornography and other phenomena violating moral norms' in the nation's schools.
(Via CourageMan).
:: Update ::
DREADNOUGHT wrote a piece on the debate over HIV/AIDS infected immigrants and entry bans. It was not published elsewhere, so it is posted below.
:: Open Wide the Doors... ::
Plans to deny entry to refugees and migrants who carry the HIV virus are wrong, argues John Heard
An eminent man of American letters, Edmund White, visited Sydney in 2006. I interviewed him in a hotel room and the resulting material was used in two published interviews – one in DNA Magazine and the other in the Love, Sex & Desire issue of Meanjin - Australia’s leading literary magazine.
Edmund White is HIV positive. I didn’t ask him about his affliction.
I did quiz him about his writing. We spoke about art, love, sex, literature and politics. I challenged his views on marriage – radical – and listened while he spoke about metaphor and method. While a gentle breeze lifted the clouds high over the Harbour Bridge, we discussed the finest Australian writers alongside giants of world literature.
It was a brilliant exchange. It is not untrue to say that the interviews, when published, enriched Australian cultural life. It certainly made my day.
It was also something of a coup. In one corner a young Australian, in the other a captive author of famed ability.
It was, undoubtedly, a valuable experience.
I keep thinking of this marvelous event, then, when I hear people talking about a move to restrict immigration to Australia for people with HIV/AIDS. If the tables were turned – me with HIV, Mr. White uninfected and the interview were to take place in New York or anywhere else in the United States – it might never have happened. The United States does not allow individuals with HIV/AIDS to visit and she makes it near impossible for them to immigrate on a permanent basis.
I don’t know whether or not Mr. White had unprotected sex while in Australia. I don’t know if he bled onto anyone. I cannot say whether his actions might or might not have put citizens at greater risk of infection with HIV. I can say that ignoring the other attributes and achievements of this person, crumpling the wide wonder of the afternoon we spent together and the benefits that flowed from it – personal, cultural, no doubt commercial too after Mr White appeared at the Sydney Writers Festival on behalf of his Australian publisher – to focus in on his HIV status alone would be a mistake.
It would also represent a narrowing of Australian values and a slackening in our commitment to a ‘fair go’.
This is because egalitarianism demands that we treat a man according to the merit in his actions or the quality of his output. Australians look to artistic and intellectual ability, we value craft and trade-related excellence or distinction in sporting or other practical pursuits. These values, slightly modified, guide our immigration system.
It would be deeply un-Australian to bar an author like Mr. White, should he wish to visit Australia again, and our system would fail the test of justice if it were set up to reject other, nameless immigrants seeking a permanent home here, simply because of what their medical reports reveal about them. Indeed, such a situation would see a medical report operating like a criminal report, but without satisfying the criteria justice demands: a fair trial, compelling evidence, a measured punishment.
This nation built on convict bones would make virtual convicts of the ill, and reject them outright, merely for the taint on their blood.
The only court that has condemned most HIV/AIDS sufferers, particularly those of Mr. White’s relatively ignorant generation and certainly those innocents who suffer in sub-Saharan Africa and other areas of HIV/AIDS plague-intensity, is the tribunal of ill-fate and chance. By barring such people, we’d treat them like others less worthy, indeed exactly like those who have deliberately spread illness and disease or committed some other offence and been convicted for their actions under due process. To treat the innocent as we treat the guilty would be to levy a punishment without evidence of a crime. This is unfair.
By barring access to such people, the Australian nation would also punish them for potential future actions. This is because the fear seems to be that such people will infect Australian citizens, or cost too much money to support for extended periods.
The first objection is abhorrent to justice – it is unfair to deny entry to those infected with HIV/AIDS just because there is a risk some of them might infect Australians. There is a greater risk that young Muslim males will become terrorists, but we rightly reject calls to bar entry on such narrow, racist terms.
The second objection is abhorrent to a proper understanding of the value of human life. If we bar people from entry to Australia because of the cost they might incur as hospital patients, etc., then today’s calls for HIV/AIDS victims to get the boot might become tomorrow’s precedent for the rejection of the elderly, the disabled or other vulnerable – and therefore apparently ‘expensive’ - members of the human family.
None of these outcomes would edify or perpetuate that most Australian of concerns: that every individual be given a ‘fair go’.
Nor would a bar on HIV/AIDS visitors or immigrants properly reflect the largeness of Australian democracy, that open-minded, openhearted honesty we are praised for overseas and proud of at home. Instead of a land of hope, we would become a nation increasingly closed off. Instead of turning to our brothers and sisters and offering beaches, beer and precious moments of connection, cultural exchange and enterprise, we would turn away from them. We would close the beaches and pack up our hearts.
There are, of course, or at least were, good reasons for the American ban on HIV/AIDS infected visitors/immigrants. In the early days of the viral attrition it might have been important to restrict access, at least until the source of the affliction was known. Now, in an age of sophisticated HIV-awareness it is unlikely that imperative remains. Thus, in December 2006 President George W. Bush indicated he would sign an executive order overturning the US ban on HIV infected visitors and immigrants. Australia should not follow America into a ban, certainly not at this late stage when the United States is re-tracing its steps.
Further, the Prime Minister’s comments to the effect that people with tuberculosis are currently banned do not amount to a strong argument for a similar bar on HIV/AIDS carriers. Rather, they remind us that we should remove the TB ban too.
Certainly, there is no good sense in which Mr White’s visit to Sydney last year should be regretted, or the migration of other infected individuals denied. If the man – for he is a man, not an infection – wished to move here permanently, this young Australian would be the first to welcome him back.
:: The Upshot ::
Let that be the hospitality, the heart, that all Australians show to HIV/AIDS afflicted individuals wishing to enter our nation. For our sake and theirs.
:: Resources ::
(Via CourageMan).
:: Update ::
DREADNOUGHT wrote a piece on the debate over HIV/AIDS infected immigrants and entry bans. It was not published elsewhere, so it is posted below.
:: Open Wide the Doors... ::
Plans to deny entry to refugees and migrants who carry the HIV virus are wrong, argues John Heard
An eminent man of American letters, Edmund White, visited Sydney in 2006. I interviewed him in a hotel room and the resulting material was used in two published interviews – one in DNA Magazine and the other in the Love, Sex & Desire issue of Meanjin - Australia’s leading literary magazine.
Edmund White is HIV positive. I didn’t ask him about his affliction.
I did quiz him about his writing. We spoke about art, love, sex, literature and politics. I challenged his views on marriage – radical – and listened while he spoke about metaphor and method. While a gentle breeze lifted the clouds high over the Harbour Bridge, we discussed the finest Australian writers alongside giants of world literature.
It was a brilliant exchange. It is not untrue to say that the interviews, when published, enriched Australian cultural life. It certainly made my day.
It was also something of a coup. In one corner a young Australian, in the other a captive author of famed ability.
It was, undoubtedly, a valuable experience.
I keep thinking of this marvelous event, then, when I hear people talking about a move to restrict immigration to Australia for people with HIV/AIDS. If the tables were turned – me with HIV, Mr. White uninfected and the interview were to take place in New York or anywhere else in the United States – it might never have happened. The United States does not allow individuals with HIV/AIDS to visit and she makes it near impossible for them to immigrate on a permanent basis.
I don’t know whether or not Mr. White had unprotected sex while in Australia. I don’t know if he bled onto anyone. I cannot say whether his actions might or might not have put citizens at greater risk of infection with HIV. I can say that ignoring the other attributes and achievements of this person, crumpling the wide wonder of the afternoon we spent together and the benefits that flowed from it – personal, cultural, no doubt commercial too after Mr White appeared at the Sydney Writers Festival on behalf of his Australian publisher – to focus in on his HIV status alone would be a mistake.
It would also represent a narrowing of Australian values and a slackening in our commitment to a ‘fair go’.
This is because egalitarianism demands that we treat a man according to the merit in his actions or the quality of his output. Australians look to artistic and intellectual ability, we value craft and trade-related excellence or distinction in sporting or other practical pursuits. These values, slightly modified, guide our immigration system.
It would be deeply un-Australian to bar an author like Mr. White, should he wish to visit Australia again, and our system would fail the test of justice if it were set up to reject other, nameless immigrants seeking a permanent home here, simply because of what their medical reports reveal about them. Indeed, such a situation would see a medical report operating like a criminal report, but without satisfying the criteria justice demands: a fair trial, compelling evidence, a measured punishment.
This nation built on convict bones would make virtual convicts of the ill, and reject them outright, merely for the taint on their blood.
The only court that has condemned most HIV/AIDS sufferers, particularly those of Mr. White’s relatively ignorant generation and certainly those innocents who suffer in sub-Saharan Africa and other areas of HIV/AIDS plague-intensity, is the tribunal of ill-fate and chance. By barring such people, we’d treat them like others less worthy, indeed exactly like those who have deliberately spread illness and disease or committed some other offence and been convicted for their actions under due process. To treat the innocent as we treat the guilty would be to levy a punishment without evidence of a crime. This is unfair.
By barring access to such people, the Australian nation would also punish them for potential future actions. This is because the fear seems to be that such people will infect Australian citizens, or cost too much money to support for extended periods.
The first objection is abhorrent to justice – it is unfair to deny entry to those infected with HIV/AIDS just because there is a risk some of them might infect Australians. There is a greater risk that young Muslim males will become terrorists, but we rightly reject calls to bar entry on such narrow, racist terms.
The second objection is abhorrent to a proper understanding of the value of human life. If we bar people from entry to Australia because of the cost they might incur as hospital patients, etc., then today’s calls for HIV/AIDS victims to get the boot might become tomorrow’s precedent for the rejection of the elderly, the disabled or other vulnerable – and therefore apparently ‘expensive’ - members of the human family.
None of these outcomes would edify or perpetuate that most Australian of concerns: that every individual be given a ‘fair go’.
Nor would a bar on HIV/AIDS visitors or immigrants properly reflect the largeness of Australian democracy, that open-minded, openhearted honesty we are praised for overseas and proud of at home. Instead of a land of hope, we would become a nation increasingly closed off. Instead of turning to our brothers and sisters and offering beaches, beer and precious moments of connection, cultural exchange and enterprise, we would turn away from them. We would close the beaches and pack up our hearts.
There are, of course, or at least were, good reasons for the American ban on HIV/AIDS infected visitors/immigrants. In the early days of the viral attrition it might have been important to restrict access, at least until the source of the affliction was known. Now, in an age of sophisticated HIV-awareness it is unlikely that imperative remains. Thus, in December 2006 President George W. Bush indicated he would sign an executive order overturning the US ban on HIV infected visitors and immigrants. Australia should not follow America into a ban, certainly not at this late stage when the United States is re-tracing its steps.
Further, the Prime Minister’s comments to the effect that people with tuberculosis are currently banned do not amount to a strong argument for a similar bar on HIV/AIDS carriers. Rather, they remind us that we should remove the TB ban too.
Certainly, there is no good sense in which Mr White’s visit to Sydney last year should be regretted, or the migration of other infected individuals denied. If the man – for he is a man, not an infection – wished to move here permanently, this young Australian would be the first to welcome him back.
:: The Upshot ::
Let that be the hospitality, the heart, that all Australians show to HIV/AIDS afflicted individuals wishing to enter our nation. For our sake and theirs.
:: Resources ::
- World AIDS Day 2006;
- Guide to US immigration for HIV/AIDS service providers;
- The Pope on sickness and suffering in Pavia (April, 2007); and
- Lowy Institute paper (.pdf) on HIV/AIDS immigrants.
by DREADNOUGHT at 12:48:00 PM
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