— Anonymous
It is fascinating to read about Paul Monette’s grief and the epidemic situation caused by “AIDS” during eighties and nineties. I was not familiar of AIDS until I went to high school. There were many proses, poems, or verses about AIDS. As far I remember from my high school texts, there was a prose about a Bangladeshi person, who was affected by AIDS while living in Malaysia. When he came back from Malaysia to Bangladesh, the native people treated with him terrifyingly. He was isolated from his families, relatives, and society. I think, people of Bangladesh had a superstition of spreading the disease, if they stay close to the infected person.
Similarly, as I can see in the incidents of eighties and nineties people like Paul Monette had to encounter, where the government people were not rushing to find a cure. Rather, they believed that the disease like AIDS was God’s way of punishing homosexuals. As I am a religious person, it is my belief, not a superstition, that punishment comes from God to those communities or religions, where people have disobeyed the laws of God. As God does not allow humans to homosexuality, it makes more sense to me that if people commit with homosexual intercourse, they are more likely to be infected or punished by God. However, I also agree with the fact that as a human being, we should come forward to help the affected people. We can spread our assistance through treatment, raising awareness, and encouraging the ill persons.
If I look at the rage of Baldwin and Monette, I would say Baldwin’s anger makes more sense to me, because he fights against the injustice or unfair social system, as a result of racism or discrimination. Although he says that anger is going to consume him up, it is quite natural to react after the racism. On the contrary, damage has been occurred to Monette and he is in the corner of his own death after he encounters the death of his loved ones; so, it is much logical that he fights for irresponsible conduct of government towards AIDS.
