December 1 is World AIDS Day, and each year I do a blog post—the one thing I’ve done every year since I started this blog. As I’ve often said, I feel it’s my duty, even if some years I have very little to say.This is one of the years in which I have little to say. I’m busy with work at the moment, and all the other things involved in day-to-day living. But today, especially, I’m mindful of all the people I knew, and the millions more I never knew, who never got the chance to worry about getting work done, or doing chores around the house, or any of the other mundane things in our lives that we take for granted.
But, as I said last year, these posts aren’t just about remembrance; they're also something more:
“…when I post these annual reminders, it’s not just some banal ‘golly, isn’t it great that we remember’ nonsense; instead, it’s an act of defiance, that despite everything, despite all the loss and despite the hatred and bigotry our steadfast adversaries still display and use, we are still here and we’re still fighting. Someday, we’ll be the last ones left standing on the battlefield as our adversaries finally surrender or move on to new targets.”Our adversaries are strong, wealthy and determined. They seek to demonise the living and to disrespect those who’ve died. I won’t let them get away with it. Every time they attack LGBT people, they make me more determined. Every time they insult us, it makes me stronger. Every time they try and use AIDS as a weapon against LGBT people, it makes me more defiant.
I do this for those we’ve lost, sure, but even more, it’s for the generations yet to come. I want to see a day in which AIDS is no longer the scourge that it still is. I want to see a day when our adversaries are toothless old grumps muttering to themselves in a corner somewhere, abandoned by a society that has shunned their irrationality and irrelevance. And I will see that time.
We’ll get there, sooner than many people realise. Until then, each year at this time I recommit to remembering those we’ve lost, and to fighting on behalf of future generations.
The photo at the top of this post is a representation of the entire NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, which is now far too big to display in one place. I first posted it in July 2012.
Previous years’ blog posts:
World AIDS Day 2013
World AIDS Day 2012
World AIDS Day 2011
World AIDS Day 2010
World AIDS Day 2009
World AIDS Day 2008
World AIDS Day 2007
World AIDS Day 2006
2 comments:
(Ah, got here right away.) I always remember, even when I don't write about it.
I suppose I feel obligated to write something in part precisely because I always have—being as how it's the ONLY thing I have always written about on this blog.
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