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Silences
and taboos in discourses on HIV/AIDS
Adenuga
Adenola Aduragba
African
Regional Youth Initiative
(ARYI-NIGERIA)
Silences and taboos on HIV/AIDS have always been a peculiar cases in
the developing world,as related to their inherent culture and norms. These
naturalised discourses of "culture" in Africa have functioned
coercively. Fictions of authenticity, custom, and "the past"
bolster patriarchal goals and desires, while perpetuating the servitude of
women, and demonising both the men and women who choose to reject
heterosexist norms. Such fictions carry a charged emotional force because
they are linked to a sense of loyalty among those with a shared history of
misrepresentation and cultural marginalisation. But their claims to
inclusiveness are belied by their projections of culture as an edifice of
unchanging institutions, traditions and identities. Arguments about the
timelessness of the latter have a particular valence in the context of
colonial and neo-colonial domination: salvaging a receding past is seen as
the antidote to a host of colonial and neo-colonial ills. Ironically,
then, the sense of a "culture" fixed in dominant discourses
echoes colonial projections of a static and primordial African culture
that is diametrically opposed to Western modernity. Fictions of an
undiluted African culture have been weapons for enforcing women's
obedience, with the charge of "Westernisation" being used
against many women in public realms dominated by men. Women so castigated
are pressurised to modify their "untraditional" behaviour or
relinquish an identity that appears to bequeath a communal dignity. Yet
the selective lauding of certain institutions, customs or values lays bare
the spuriousness of discourses that claim to speak in the name of a
culture. Particular notions of authenticity have dominated the public
sphere, with the hegemony of certain views becoming an obstacle to
thinking critically about how these views ultimately serve certain groups'
interests, or how beliefs that dominate public debate suppress the vantage
points and experiences of certain members of a culture. In recent years,
the charge of "Westernisation" has surfaced with special
virulence against feminism on the continent. With the growth of the
women's movement and feminist scholarship during the last decade, feminism
has increasingly challenged nationalist agendas that deify the leadership
and ideologies of elite men. Predictably, the backlash has invoked the
idea that African feminists have betrayed, violated or contaminated
"culture". The vehemence of the feminist backlash testifies to
the anxieties of those who have long built their sense of themselves,
their material interests, and their political power on extremely fragile
claims to the collective voice implied by their defence of
"culture". Increasingly, dominant narratives of culture have
also been marshalled to repress all individual choices that threaten
sexually and socially ascendant manhood.Attacks on gays in the name of
African authenticity are rooted in the fear, experienced by many men and
women, who perceive their most closely held values and norms to be
imperilled. Homophobia therefore symbolises a profound resistance to
surrendering the identities, ritualised behaviour and social codes that
cultures prescribe for us. An index of the intensity of this anxiety is
the silence -situation that must be read as a pervasive collective
investment in certain cultures' hegemonised taboos, naturalised behaviour
and fixed identities.
bio:
Born and breadth in Lagos,Nigeria,a tolerable and sociable being in
dispensing a selfless services to humanity. I had my primary education at
ArchDeacon Adelaja Primary school,proceeded to CMS Grammar School for my
secondary education.In furtherance for my high level education,I graduated
from the Department of Demography and Social Statistics,Faculty of Social
Sciences,Obafemi Awolowo University,Ile-Ife,Osun,Nigeria.
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