HIV/AIDS-THAILAND: When the Music is Silenced by Death

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Sonny Inbaraj

BANGKOK, Feb 28 2005 (IPS) - ”Death becomes a dancing partner when one has HIV/AIDS. First you have to accept it, and then dance with lady death,” says well-known U.S.-born Thai musician Todd Tongdee Lavelle.

Lavelle was referring to the demise of all the seven members of the HIV Band – which before last July’s Global AIDS Conference here was still struggling to play on despite the musicians being sick in the terminal stages of AIDS.

The band had a hiatus of two years before regrouping together again last year because all the members were either going in or coming out of hospital.

”I really feel sad, but I admire their bravery. These guys were great, they were playing music while confronting death at the same time,” Lavelle tells IPS.

‘Boy’ Wyachai, a folk-rock who recently returned to Thailand after a sojourn in the United States agrees with Lavelle.

”They’ll be missed among the circle of Thai musicians. They were all sick, sometimes gravely ill, but gave their best when they played,” he says in an interview.

The HIV Band was set up in 1994 at the Phrabath Namphu Buddhist temple in Lopburi province, about 115 kilometres north of Bangkok, by seven AIDS patients who wrote their own songs and performed in Western-styled rock..

The band was the brainchild of Phra Ajarn Alongkot Dikkapanyo, the head monk at the temple.

”When Ajarn Alongkot first set up the temple in the early 1990s, he felt that the Thai population needed to be educated about AIDS,” recalls Lavelle.

Adds Lavelle: ”It was a great idea at the time to have a band with AIDS sufferers, and using their music to spread HIV/AIDS awareness.”

”I just wish they had greater support from within the Thai community. Many people were just put off and scared when they saw them play,” he reveals.

The Buddhist temple treats AIDS sufferers in their final stages. There is room only for some 400 AIDS sufferers – of whom an average of seven die every day. Tragically, there is a waiting list of 10,000 sufferers, mainly poor rural people who have been shunned by society.

While the number of band members was fixed at seven, in the space of 10 years the HIV Band had seen more than 30 musicians come and go – with the not so sick replacing those that died.

”But now, even the not so sick musicians are no longer in the temple to replace the dead members. It’s sad,” says Lavelle whose band ‘Todd Lavelle and Thailand’ has been jamming frequently with the HIV Band.

Lavelle, several times, had included the HIV Band in his road shows throughout Thailand to spread HIV/AIDS awareness among young Thais through rock and folk music.

For the North American-Thai musician, the greatest challenge in his work with ‘Todd Lavelle and Thailand’, after the Global AIDS Conference – which brought together over 17,000 delegates to the Thai capital – is encouraging the country’s youth to learn about sexuality in its broader aspects.

”Issues like safety through the use of condoms, emotional engagement, culture, the readiness of both people to have sex and desire need to be addressed,” says Lavelle.

”The core issue needs to be acknowledged,” he stresses. ”Thais are very sexual beings but they don’t want to come to terms with that.”

As part of his band’s attempts to reach out to young Thais, Lavelle has written a booklet in Thai called ‘Talk About Love’, which is currently available at all Seven-Eleven convenient stores nationwide.

”Lots of Thai kids are confused about this whole thing of sex intermingled with love, emotions and desire,” he says. ”They receive no help from their parents and teachers who are in a state of denial themselves.”

Lavelle points to the term ‘gig’, which has crept into the vocabulary of the young just a couple of years ago.

”A ‘gig’ is a regular sexual partner a young girl or boy has on the side, while being in a steady relationship. No questions are supposed to be asked by either the boyfriend or girlfriend. It’s pure sex and nothing else with the ‘gig’,” he reveals.

”It might seem contrary to Western values but it’s accepted in Thailand – though no one talks about it openly,” adds Lavelle.

Lavelle’s predicament is addressing the safety issue when it comes to having sex with multiple partners.

”I have been criticised for bringing up this issue of ‘gig’ in my concerts. Someone once said I was denigrating Thai culture. But the issue here is, are Thai kids aware of the need to protect themselves from HIV?” he asks.

According to ‘Bangkok Post’ columnist Sanitsuda Ekachai, despite Thai parents’ stern preaching on virginity and their rigid stance against premarital sex, the problem of pregnancies outside wedlock remains rife.

”Thai girls have been taught since childhood to ‘rak nuan sa-nguan tua’, meaning to take pride in being ‘untouched’ and ‘sexually reserved’ – yet the statistics on first-time sexual experience, pregnancy and abortion among Thai youngsters are much higher than for their peers in Western countries,” she said in a recent column.

According to Public Health Ministry statistics, the teen abortion rate in Thailand is as high as 16.2 per 1,000 births, compared to 3.1 per 1,000 in Germany, 4.2 in the Netherlands and 8.9 in France.

Meanwhile, the average age for first sexual experience in Thailand is 15, compared to 16 in the United States, 16.6 in France and 17.4 in Germany. As to the Netherlands, considered by many Thais as a bastion of ”free sex” because of its openness on sexual matters, the average age for first sexual experience is 17.7, considerably later than for Thai teenagers.

”I don’t agree with the notion of celibacy vows and not having sex till one is married. It just doesn’t work that way in Thailand,” says Lavelle. ”The thing is, in Thailand, young Thais are very active sexually. To pretend it doesn’t happen is a step backwards in the fight against AIDS.”

According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, at the end of 2003 there were at least 570,000 Thais living with HIV in the country – though the number could be as high as one million, in a population of 64.5 million.