What would be the OPPOSITE of "pinkwashing"?
That is, what would you call it when a generally progressive government's less-positive record on LGBTQ issues is used as an argument for progressives and radicals to support the defeat or removal of that government?
I'm asking that because it seems to be the latest tactic of the anti-Chavez propagandists. The argument goes that Vice-President Maduro has been less than gay-friendly, so progressives(by this logic)should support his conservative opponent, Mr. Capriles, in the next Venezuelan elections(and demand snap elections if Hugo Chavez dies of his current illness).
This was also used as an anti-Castro argument a few years ago(Cuba has improved significantly on LGBTQ issues since then).
Is there a term for using LGBTQ issues to support pushing a Left country to the Right?
Nope.
The only term I could think of would be "single-issue politics", but doesn't this REMAIN pinkwashing - by the conservative opposition? I doubt very much they really have the interests of LGBTQ Venezuelans at heart.
And it is shameful in this day and age for someone like Maduro to be anything less than gay-friendly. The old Stalinist crap about "petit-bourgeois lifestyles" simply doesn't wash in the 21st Century.
Cuba's treatment of gay people (I use gay deliberately; I believe gay men were the main targets) and people with AIDS was terrible; fortunately the situation has greatly improved.
I haven't read anything about this issue in Venezuelan politics, Ken. Can you recommend any articles? I read Spanish.
I think this is just more of Venezuela's ruling elite's propaganda designed to help then regain power so they can rule on their own behalf and on behalf of the global 0.01%. I think he recently called his opponents faggots so there is no doubt he could use some education on the issue.
However like most rights in that country gay rights stem from actions taken by the Chavez government. The right wing alternative ruled for a long time prior to the Bolivarian revolution and they never did a thing including even the basics of legalizing same sex sex.
I unfortunately have heard left wing politicians in Canada use "gay" as a slur and insult and while it makes me cringe it does not send me into the arms of Harper and Toews etc. If I was gay in that country I would have a hard time supporting an opposition that in the past has aligned itself with the Catholic Church in opposition to gay rights.
The "strongman" view of other peoples democracy is in itself a form of propaganda that discounts the power of the people who made Chavez the leader that he is. Venezuela is democratic country with an engaged electorate and that is something the right wing and their allies in North America would love to see replaced by the old oligarchy who ruled for years on behalf of foreign interests. I suspect that the problem in much of North America is that our citizens don't have an idea what a democracy is supposed to look like and they think our FPTP horse races that elect dictators like Harper are a form of democracy.
http://frozenjustice.blogspot.com/2010/01/cuba-and-venezuela-sign-agreem...
I think you meant references to homosexuality and any concern for gay rights as "symptoms of bourgeois decadence"... Ah, the good old days of the CPC(M-L) and the WCP - how little I miss them.
Yes indeed. Both expressions, and many others, were used, in the history of Stalinist parties.
Even Trotskyist, Anarchist and other non-Stalinist left groups were certainly not free from homophobia or sexism for that matter, but this was fought much earlier on in those.
I had some gay (male) friends in En lutte (In struggle in the RoC). There were a lot of lesbian and gay male people in that group, more than in the League, probably because En lutte worked a lot in community groups were somewhat "non-mainstream" people could get jobs.
The WCP actually encouraged and practically forced het members in couples to get married - at the very time Québécois people, whether workers or "petit-bourgeois", were abandoning marriage in droves, due to the general ras-le-bol with the Church. As for lesbian and gay people in that group, I believe they had to try to "straighten out".
And yes, LGBT movements are active in Latin American countries nowadays, and in some countries legal - and fragile social - progress has been made.
Venezuela seems to have one. Here is a link to photos from 2011 Pride parade which I believe was their 11 annual.
http://www.demotix.com/news/751884/gay-pride-march-sweeps-caracas-venezu...
re: anti-gay Maoists and Hoxhaites...
I think the CPC-ML has tempered, if not outright liberalized, its stand on gay and lesbian equality. In 2003, their Ontario provincial wing ran as a candidate that guy who threw chocolate milk at Stockwell Day in protest of Day's homophobia.
http://tinyurl.com/a8dbwqf
A Maoist critique of Maoist homophobia, from the 1970s...
http://tinyurl.com/az49xjn