I write this just after Toronto Pride weekend. The streets are quiet, the air is soft, the light gentle. It seems most of the G20 overtime cops, all the renta-cops, all the come-from-away-cops have gone home. I finally have time to recoup -- from a week of protesting the G20, police violence, and queer complacency -- and what I find is that I am overwhelmed with feelings of grief, fear, disgust, anxiety -- as well as with feelings of pleasure, excitement, and gratitude.
To read Elle Flanders's story Healing the gay-Jewish divide in Canada, published simultaneously, please click here.
Pride Toronto has reversed its original decision to ban the words Israel Apartheid (and hence the group, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid), after an enormous community backlash from Free Speechers; old time politicos; interest groups that have felt marginalized by Pride for some time; and a young generation that doesn't jibe with Pride's corporate drag.
To read Elle Flanders' story Pride Toronto reverses its decision to ban QAIA, published simultaneously, please click here.
Pride Toronto backs down on decision to censor group at 2010 Pride Parade
For Immediate Release - June 23, 2010
TORONTO - Queers Against Israeli Apartheid congratulates Toronto's LGBT community for successfully reversing censorship at the 2010 Pride Parade. Pride Toronto announced today that it would not censor the term ‘Israeli apartheid' from the parade.
"This is a victory for the Palestine solidarity movement, which has faced censorship and bullying tactics from the Israel lobby for far too long," says Tim McCaskell, a member of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid. "The Israel lobby learned a tough lesson today about our community's proud history of standing up to censorship and human rights abuses."
Freedom of speech has been trumped by politics this year at Toronto's Pride Festival.
Thanks, or no thanks, to certain politicians and Zionist lobbyists and defamatory editorials and columns by a national newspaper that has never championed queer rights, Pride's raison d'etre has been corrupted.
To them, Pride should be about nothing more than partying. They believe we should ignore the hard-won rights for which those who have come before us fought, rights that were earned after centuries of oppression.
All of this over a group which marches under the banner Queers Against Israel Apartheid.
Since this article was written, the federal government has cancelled $397,500 in support for Pride Toronto.
The hysteria created around the inclusion of a group called Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) in the Toronto Pride Parade this year can be justly attributed to the ongoing Brand Israel campaign backed by Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and most recently by Irwin Cotler's Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism.
Dear Councillors,
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