During the Aids epidemic, the Australian mass media showed a Grim Reaper ad, based on the line “this disease used to affect homosexuals and drug addicts, now we are all in danger”. At the same time, an eminent surgeon (people will know who I mean) stood in front of media mikes and cameras and said that he had no sympathy for Aids sufferers, his only concern was for the “innocent victim”.
As well as being massively demoralising for both Aids victims and their carers, in hindsight we now know that gangs of bashers were inspired by these two events to patrol the cliffs of the Sydney coastline and bash, rob and murder gay men doing the beat at night. We know this as members of a murderous Bondi gang of bashers were recorded in jail saying just that, also one of them had a tattoo of the Grim reaper, a gothic touch.
This eminent surgeon has since died and his memory is perpetuated in a Foundation doing his work, for which it solicits donations from the public. One of its spruikers made the mistake of ringing me at home and got the above lecture.
I also wrote to the Foundation and insisted that the LGBTIQ community was owed an apology for the damage this man had done to us. The media officer wrote back, admitting that the surgeon had had problems accepting homosexuality, especially when two of his younger relatives turned out to be gay. When they were dying of Aids he turned his back on them.
The only explanation the media person could offer was that perhaps the surgeon was of a generation which uniformly had a problem with gay persons. Being a humanitarian abroad but a terror in his family reminds me of Oscar Wilde’s wonderful line in The Importance of Being Earnest, “The general, your father, was essentially a man of peace except in his domestic matters”.
I continue to believe that we are owed an apology by the Foundation. I think the media person intimated that the surgeon was embarrassed by what he saw as an unclean disease, certainly he, like the medical community of the time, felt helpless to do anything. Perhaps the surgeon’s doing charity work in third world countries a way of making amends.
Meanwhile, where is that apology?
anton veenstra making tapestry & objects 