The Malay proverb mencurah air ke daun keladi simply means a fruitless endeavour. With infinite sincerity, I hope the government, through the Education and Health Ministries respectively, is not consciously reflecting the saying in their plans of action.

It certainly is no exaggeration to say that the government's reaction to issues concerning sex education, HIV/Aids and safe sex is nothing short of a 'touch and go' approach.

There seems to be such negligible commitment on the part of various ministries to synergising and mobilising resources to take on these issues and discuss them with maturity.

A case in point is the Education Ministry's recent proposal for sex education to be taught in Form Three. The National Union of Teaching Profession countered this with a suggestion to tackle sex education at primary school instead.

At a talk recently, Health Minister Chua Jui Meng expressed alarm over the number (which he did not disclose) of youths who had unprotected sex. But when asked about sex education as a solution, he did what our ministers do so ably - he passed the buck to the Education Ministry.

Chua went on to say that his ministry and the Malaysian Aids Council (MAC) were working closely to provide sex education for youths and to promote concepts of a healthy lifestyle in schools.

It would appear that Chua has contradicted himself or that he simply lacks the courage to reveal the true situation concerning HIV/Aids and the number of youngsters who are practising unsafe sex.

What exactly are these healthy lifestyle programmes all about then? Does safe sex not come under the ambit of a healthy lifestyle or is the Health Ministry just teaching students about healthy diets, exercise and staying fit?

It is frustrating that, time and time again, our ministers - who are also our wakil rakyat - fail miserably in carrying out their duties convincingly.

Merely generalising about the problem at hand is not going to solve the problem - that an increasing number of youngsters is becoming infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) which leads to Aids.

An indifferent people

?

The time has come, or forcibly been made to arrive in Malaysia with the rapid spread of HIV/Aids, for policy makers to get in touch with reality. There should be less talking and more action.

Stop wasting time debating about when or how or whether sex education should be taught in schools. The under-estimation of our youngsters' understanding of safe sex and HIV/Aids is going to cost the country dearly.

Undoubtedly a big number of Malaysians have the uncanny 'ability' to become indifferent when faced with issues bordering on HIV/Aids. Yet they want youngsters to refrain from having sex before marriage or not talk about sex before they tie the knot.

It is rather perplexing that for a developing country like ours, we have come to practise more than double standards. It appears that, for every issue at hand, we have a particular standard which we use to rationalise or justify our stand.

Does Dec 1 - World Aids Day - make any difference to us? Does the fact that HIV has infected 70 million people worldwide since the pandemic began make us cringe at all?

Does it even bother us that this year alone, five million people worldwide have been infected with HIV and three million have died, which is an all-time 'record'?

If what happens to our fellow human beings hardly stirs us, then it is time for serious contemplation - are Malaysians a bunch of people with zero-ability to emphathise?

Are we nothing more than a cluster of hypocrites who do not have an iota of compassion for the suffering of others, especially when the issue is that of HIV/Aids?

JJ RAY started her career with a mainstream publication. A non-conformist, she soon saw the barriers that went up whenever, through her writing, she tried to make the world a home for one and all.