List of Appendices
3.8 Purity vis-à-vis Stigmatization and Discrimination
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different value systems to foster individual health. Kleinman (1978) said that disease which is reseved for the abnormalities in the structure and functioning of the organs is a pivot of the biomedical model. “Illness to him refers to an individual experience of diseases and other related conditions”. Richman (1987) has, however, explained that when sickness is applied cross-culturally the categories can “fracture” and that some traditional societies locate disease outside the body. Halm (1995) emphasized the importance of differentials in cultural perception, definition and interpretation of phenomena. According to him, the more direct power of social relationships and cultural expectations in the production of events of sickness and healing, societies and their relationships and beliefs sicken, kill and heal as well. Richman further opined that the patterns of diseases and treatment distinguished by each culture reveals the practical reasoning on which its wider social order is based. Aisan in Yoruba conceptulaization is therefore a broader concept for all expressions of ill-health, disorderliness, displacement, disorganization or frail, weak, infirmity and anything that makes a person or society unwholesome. The Yorubas perceive every departure from social expectations as aisan;
as a result the concept of aisan is viewed as personal and non-personal phenomenon.
For anyone to be labeled sick means that person is socially unfit for the role expected of him or her. And a such, the person needs to be taken care of and be brought back to normal condition (Turner 1988:87). To be sick is to have a specific social identity, a perspective on the world and to be in case of illness, a member of a community. According to Talcott Parsons (1951:90), the sick role commits an individual to pass from community of the healthy to the world of the sick. To Parsons, the sick role demands a temporary ‘exemption’ from social roles.
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part of the either of the spouses. As a result of social stigma which disease carries, every family in Yorubaland wants to maintain good health status, to avoid social ostracism.
This is why the Yorubas go a long way to find out the health details of the family which their child is marrying into. To the Yorubas, when a man is healthy, he adapts himself to the needs and aspirations of his community. It is when a man is in good health that he can fulfill his social functions as well as his moral obligations. The Yoruba acknowledge this when they say, Ilera ni oogun oro – “Good health is the magic of wealth”. This means that all is in useless without good health, and nothing can be achieved while in a state of ill-health. The Yoruba also speak of Alafia – “good health”, and they are continually mindful of the goal of alaafia, so they aviud whatever threatens their health and combat it by all possible means (Dopamu 1979). This also informs why they develop a sort of pathology through which their attitudes towards disease and their treatment of diseases can be discerned.
However the advent of the HIV/AIDS pandemic has resulted in sufferers being included in this category of stigmatized people, in what Bolaji Bateye has termed a
“conspiracy of silence” (Bateye, 2006: 10). In the same vein, the well-known African theologian, Professor Ukachukwu Chris Manus lamented that:
Many, many including staff and students have not yet brought themselves to accept that HIV infection is not a sufficient proof of someone’s immoral life-style. Many members of the church and the theological community have not yet come to fully understand factors like ethnicity,gender, poverty, and sexual orientation as factors that arecontributive to the spread of HIV/AIDS (Manus 2005:9).
He went on to note and makes the following recommendations viz:
There is still much to be done in making people eschew stigma and discrimination. Unpleasant expressions people use to refer to HIV/AIDS such like ‘obiri n’ aja ocha’, “stick”, “the divine rod”, “sign of the end-time”
and other such remarks are rather dis-empowering and murderous. Most of our institutions are high concentrations of PLWHAs but whom, due to the
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damaging stigma and discrimination; refuse to declare their HIV status.
Theological education should engage in active reflections and rigorous critique of our socializing influences in order to transform the campuses into HIV/AIDS friendly environments( Manus 2005)
The detection of such in person would shame not only to him or her but to the entire family. The Yoruba have a custom whereby marriage is regarded not as that of an individual but a contract between two families. When a would be suitor visits the family of his intended spouse, members of that family would be dispatched to spy out and collect information on the peculiar family history of the suitor. Such information is usually on health matters so as to detect if any incurable disease runs in the family. Detection of the HIV pandemic in a particular family would make such to lose its standing in the society.
That family would receive the stigma of impurity.
In the Yoruba context, the action or conduct of one man within the Community can affect the other members for good or for evil. According to Awolalu and Dopamu (2005:234) in order to prevent man from becoming rebellious and endangering the welfare of the society, there are set patterns or code of behaviours for the individual and the community as a whole. Hence there are taboos governing societal life in Yoruba cultural setting. The Yoruba word for taboo is eewo – things forbidden, things not done.
In the words of Awolalu:
In African Communities, there are sanctions recognized as the approved standard of social and religious conduct on the part of individuals in the society and the Community as a whole. A breach of, or failure to adhere to the sanctions is sin, and this incurs the displeasure of Deity and this functionaries. Sin is, therefore, doing that which is contrary to the will and directions of Deity. It includes any immoral behaviour, ritual mistakes, any offences against God or man, breach of Covenant, breaking of taboos and doing anything regarded as abominable and polluting; and to disregard the norms and taboos of the society is to commit sin (Awolalu 1976:44).
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For the Yoruba, man’s character is of supreme importance in public morality. Bolaji Idowu (1962:157) puts it that “as character makes for good social relations, it is laid upon every member of the Community to act in such a way as to promote always the good of the whole body”. The Yoruba will say of a person: Iwa re laye yii ni yoo da o lejo –
“Your character here on earth will pass judgement on you”. They believe that no sin committed in secret is hidden from God. That is why the Yoruba say, ‘a mokun jale, bi oba aye ko ri o, Oba oke n wo o’ (You who steal in the cover of the night, know you assuredly that if the earthly kind does not see you, the heavenly king (God) does. In fact, it is another way of applying the retributive principle instituted by God himself.