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Well of course you do, Lily_C, because there is no danger whatsoever that your sort of views, like Cheri DiNovo's, will be excluded from the Pride parade nor indeed anywhere else in Canada. No, the threat to democracy is elsewhere, and your views (like hers) form part of it.
lol
what exactly are "my sort of views"?
Oh. Things like making a big deal of your kind up-standing support for the rights of Gay and Lesbian people in Palestine totally over the heads of the people you say you are defending, and be self-righteous about it at the same time. In fact, ignore who they are and what they say entirely, because you the wise and civilizing missionary know better than the backward infidels.
The sort you wrote here (mind you, I have to assume that what you write reflects your views, no?)
It was oh so reminiscent of that DiNovo character, who has yet to retract her anti-democratic abusive comments about the very same people (anti-apartheid activists) that you would like to exclude:
So you will understand why I am having a massive attack of déjà vu. People who provide "logic" aimed at excluding the struggle for freedom all tend to sound the same after a while.
to both of you,
First off, I never said anything about defending gay and lesbian people in any one specific country. Secondly there are MANY "struggles for freedom" in the world and they don't always neatly intersect.
Finally, I tolerate other people's views, which cannot be said for you with your sick accusations and ad hominem attacks. All LGBT persons are MY community wherever they come from. As for being self-righteous? who the f**k are you to make statements like that? I have earned my right to fight for my causes. I have been hospitalised four times for doing what I knew was right, and still have some scars to prove it. Can you say the same?
"Sick accusations"? "Ad hominem attacks"? Just because I said you sound like Cheri DiNovo?
By the way, your scars do not entitle you to shut the mouths of pro-Palestinian activists. Queers Against Israeli Apartheid oppose both homophobia and the Israeli criminal regime. You may only wish to engage in one of those struggles. But once you attack the other and seek to ban it, prepare to be criticized.
Where does trying to shut down the free expression of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid fit in with "I tolerate other people's views"? How does objecting to people voicing the opinion that Israel's Apartheid policies contribute to the opression of Gay and Lesbian Palestinians fit in with defending "ALL LGBT persons"? You mean some, really, and not Palestinians, definitely.
How ironic that in a discussion about a two tiered standard of rights, which we are calling Apartheid, the specific rights of Palestinian Gay and Lesbian people are irrelevant. What is important to you is that Israel bestows rights upon the Gay and Lesbian people of Israel, what is irrelevant is how Israel's Apartheid policies directly help to remove the rights of Palestinian Gay and Lesbian people.
Israelis have rights (good). The Palestinians do not (who cares?). What is this? This is in fact, the reiteration of the Aparthied view, even in your argument.
QuAIA is NOT a movement of Gay Palestinians, they are anti-Israel activists who happen to be gay, so is QUIT. If I am wrong, please point this out to me.
There are issues here that you fail to separate
I am interested the rights of Palestinian LGBT persons, AND in the rights of Palestinians, but these are not the same struggle. If the truth be told, Gay rights for Palestinians are far far more under threat in Hamas-controlled territory than in Israel. That is just a fact.
I don't want to shut down anyone's free speech, but I don't have to like what they say, and I have a right to speak out if I feel it's divisive.
Lily, Cueball and Unionist, dial it down all of you. This needs to get less personal, and more about the issues. If possible.
This thread is not about what individual babblers do and do not do in their activism and their lives. And it's not about Cheri DiNovo.
It's about how the City of Toronto has threatened to withdraw financial support of Pride Toronto in 2011 if Pride allows marchers from the group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid to march in the parade this year.
Okay?
ok.....
Yes they are under threat. That's because the "Hamas-controlled territory" as you call Gaza has been under siege for a couple years now. The IDF also slaughtered a few thousand civilians and countries like Canada that support apartheid have cut off funding to groups in Gaza.
All of these factors make organizing for queer rights a little tuff, no?
And wasn't the pride parade in Israel heavily gaurded so that homophobic Jews couldn't attack and kill queer Israelis (queer Palestinians, of course, are not welcome in that pride parade. Probably to avoid "divisivness")? Are those Jews "Hamas-controlled" too?
Al-Qaws
Aswat
Le T and Cueball, it would be really great if we can return to the topic of this thread. Thanks.
I don't see how establishing the political legitimacy of the QAIA group by showing its direct political connection to the views of Palestinian Gay and Lesbian organizations amounts to thread drift. The reason that there is an issue here is because of QAIA. The assertion made here is basically that they don't have political legitimacy. That they are just "anti-Israeli activists who happen to be gay". That isn't the fact.
ASWAT -- Parade To The Wall
World Pride under Occupation 2006
Moderation decisions vs. political decisions re Israeli apartheid
Respecting bagkitty's request about hetros self identifying so that our statements may be appropriately discounted, hi I am p-sto of the hetro-horde.
In Pride Toronto's economic impact study it was estimated that the festivities of last year's Pride Week created $94.3 million in spending and 21.1 million in tax revenues between the three levels of government. The government benefits quite well from Pride Week considering it's modest investment in the event. Reiterating previous my previous opinion, it's extremely distasteful that the city of Toronto attempt to set the agenda for this event when it benefits so well from it and does not represent the communities that Pride Week celebrates.
I think that Maysie's call to focus is appropriate as the hetro's in this thread should be supporting the autonomy of the LGBT communities to decide whether or not QAIA adquately represents them. Perhaps it's not for me to suggest but may be members of LGBT here that wish to discuss the validity of QAIA's presence can do so in a separate thread.
p-sto wrote: Perhaps it's not for me to suggest but may be members of LGBT here that wish to discuss the validity of QAIA's presence can do so in a separate thread.
Caissa'sThread drift? Is it just my perception or is traffic way down on Babble? I count less than 40 threads commented on in the last 24 hours./end threa drift
Thanks p-sto, I was beginning to wonder if anyone had actually seen that observation or if it was missed in their rush to get their rhetorical axes onto the whetstone.
Thanks again, it is extremely important that people bear this in mind. Whatever Pride may have originated as, it has largely turned into a commercial event and it must always be borne in mind when listening to what comes out of the mouths of the organizers. There is a very real financial interest on the part of the committee and the rest of the LGBT communities are well aware of this... hence the kicking and screaming when what spokespeople for the committee are spouting is reported by the MSM as representative of what the LGBT communities actually think about a matter. It is usually worth the effort to see what kind of feedback is being generated in places like Xtra...
I think that decision is kind of obvious... of course they don't represent us... no-one remembers voting for them... but nor are the majority of us going to support a move to disown them. Indeed, the more voices from outside the communities pillory them, the more likely it is that the majority of us will defend their right to participate and be heard. Of course it would help if their messaging wasn't so damn lame (heavyhanded, strident, hectoring, pick your own description).
Perhaps represent was the wrong word. My point was towards the idea that if LGBT community members feel that QAIA takes away from the tone of the celebration(protest) they should be free to say so.
Considering that the issue is regarding city funding for a cultural project taken on by the whole community of Toronto, even if done in support of one community in Toronto, the idea that event is owned exclusively by people who identify as LGB is a bit murky. Indeed the principle seems to be that to a certain extent the funding of the event acts as part of an official recognition of the celebration, and that this kind of formal recognition by people who don't identify as LGB is (was) desired because it establishes the LGB community as part of the mainstream: "The idea is that you don't have to be gay in order to advocate for LGBTQI rights".
For me, what has always been unusual and interesting about the Gay Pride parade is that it celebrated diversity and freedom of expression, and as such had signfigance far beyond the community it specifically celebrates. That is why I frequently attended (and indeed marched once) back in the old days. It really hasn't interested me for years, since it has become so corporate, though I do occasionally head down to see friends.
I am not going to go through an exercise of "identifying". I don't like that.
So, for my part of the $175,000, I say if Gay Pride were to start censoring parade content, against the tradition of the parade and its celebration of freedom of expression and diversity, then I say fuck the $175,000, I would object to it being used for an event that had come under the influence of a few highly paid professional lobbyists for a foreign power, who claim they represent a not very marginalized community here in Canada.
Who is really marginalized in this debate? Why of course it is the Palestinian voice, and in particular the Palestinian Gay and Lesbian voice, a voice that struggles to be heard over immense odds because the homophobic oppression they experience is amplified by the siege mentality that exists in Palestinian communities, lack of due process, lack of courts, lack of civil order, lack of even the basic fundamentals of state that can lead to discourse on rights of any kind, because of the Apartheid policies of the state of Israel.
Note: I am not referring to what QAIA are saying, or QUIT, or any other non-indigenous source, but the words of those people themselves, who very well articulate the double oppression they exist under, both as Gay and Lesbian people, and also as Arabs, as can be seen by anyone who reads in detail the linked sources above. There are some very wise and insightful things said in those linked articles, and I want to draw you attention to a theme:
Combating the occupation and discrimination "in order to advance respect and gender diversity in Palestinian society."
This is a very important point. In fact, nothing does more for the status of the LGB people struggling to rise above the multiple oppressions that LGB Palestinian experience than clear proof that the activist LGB community is an ally in the struggle for the civil rights of all Palestinians. Networking of the kind described in the Aswat communiqué (also linked above), is a precise strategy, aimed at ensuring the Palestinian Gay and Lesbian people have a seat at the table when the liberation of the Palestinian people is finally achieved.
It awards them respect. And it builds their power within the Palestinian liberation movement. Nothing could be more damaging to their cause than silencing those in the LGBT community who directly wish to express their solidarity with them.
There really is no need for me to speak further on this issue, except to say that any honest debate on this topic can not really go forward without the Palestinian voice, and I recommend anyone who is sincerely interested to study the two web sites I linked to above. For those indeed represent some of the main voices in the LGB community among Palestinians.
They can speak for themselves without interference from me.
A Zionist lie.
Being anti-Israeli Apartheid is not the same as being anti-Israeli. Your effort to try and conflate one with the other is a base rhetorical trick common among the apologists of Zionist racial supremacists.
Israeli Apartheid is a FACT for Palestinians living under the repression of Israeli violence and racially supremacist policies.
Zionist racial supremacists continually trumpet gay rights in Israel in an effort to divide pro-human rights activists and as though not beating up gays excuses murdering Palestinians.
Meanwhile, the main Zionist political parties crawl further into gutter with right wing religious parties that promote racialist policies up to and including the complete erasure of Palestinian peoples from historic Palestine and the occupied territories as well as hatred and intolerance of LGBTs.
I still do not understand while racial supremacists, if they are Zionists racial supremacists, are tolerated on this board. Skinheads, rightfully, would be booted from the first posting.
FM, hope you will forgive me for editing your post selectively... but what you wrote with those words is the crux of the matter (in the framework of this thread) and I think it is extremely important to draw attention to them.
Gay rights such as they exist in Israel (and there is a worthwhile debate to be had as to whether favourable high court decisions are really the equivalent of equal rights protection under a constitution) excuse nothing else. The flip side of the coin is that a country's support for the Palestinian people does nothing to excuse the groteque oppression some of these countries subject their LGBT minorities to (and the list of these countries is a long a shameful one and the abuses they tolerate or indulge themselves in are truly best described as grotesque). If someone wants to play cheerleader for Israel (or Iran or Sudan or Jamaica or Uganda or Canada or, heaven forbid, even Cuba) go ahead and do it, just don't expect everyone to cheer along side with you... you may be willing to blind yourself to human rights abuses that go on there, don't demand everyone else to join in on the chorus. And if criticism of your favourite state makes you uncomfortable... learn to cope.
I've attended Pride every year since 1989 and just wanted to validate what folks were saying up at the top of this thread -- Pride has always, always featured active participation from queer politicos demonstrating on a wide range of issues that are not LGBT-specific, and most of us have been from various strains of the political left, not all of whom, as we know, are necessarily in agreement with one another.
I haven't been in the parade for at least a decade, in fact it used to be called a march back in my day. But I think I'm going to put my marching boots on for the first time in many many years because with every single passing day I feel more compelled to stand up in support of QuAIA.
2fruition, I've never attended a pride parade despite having more gay friends than straight (it's really hard to get along with people so uptight with themselves). You've inspired me to book my vacation just so I can go.
Well, I will warn you, FM, that the progressive politics are not quite as dominant in Pride celebrations as they used to be. But it's definitely still there. Maybe I'll see you in the QuAIA contingent!
Funny thing, when I first started attending Pride I strongly identified as a gay man. As I get older, I don't even know how I identify anymore. Perhaps pansexual. Opening up to new possibilities, and wanting to support as many choices as possible for as many people as possible, feels very liberating.
The logic behind this is confused and completely unacceptable. Check your head man. What are we saying when some people try and invoke collective responsibility of an identifiable group by association? When we say for example, "some of these" people are pedophiles, in reference to Gay people? This talk is obviously tainted. The idea that any person or groups of persons are some how collectively responsible for the actions of others in that group is a root justification for all kinds of prejudice.
As if we were able to invoke homophobic laws in the United States, to regionally, or cultural indemnify Canadians, because of their association with Anglo-European Judeao-Christian society. Please.
If this "some of these Arab/Muslims" discourse is being seriously debated as a defensible line of thinking in the gay rights movement, there are really serious problems here. I don't feel obliged to "forgive" this at all. In fact I feel obliged to condemn if for what it is: prejudice.
The essential presumption behind the "some of these" people discourse that revolves around the context of the relationship of Gay and Lesbian people to the community is based on a set of presumptions about Arab society, Muslim people and in particular Hamas, which we have chosen to identify as an Islamic Fundamentalist movement, and in so doing associate it with the Taliban.
The fact is that the Arab and Muslim world shows great diversity, so much so, that it was actually Sadam Hussien's Iraq, which had the most liberal Sodomy laws regionally dating back to 1968, around the same time that Pierre Elliot Trudeau was saying that the state had no business in the bedrooms of the nation. Likewise, pidgeon holing all these various movements in the ubiquitous category of Islamic Fundamentalism, is a grave orientalist mistake. Hamas is nothing like the Taliban, nor is the state of Iran informed by the same ideology as Saudi Arabia.
Note what the sister from Aswat makes clear: "we are not outlawed." Read carefully the links I provided from Palestinian LGB rights advocates. Particularly this in regards to the Palestinian problem specifically:
In fact, if we look closely at the analysis provided, Aswat clearly examples how it is that the lack of state intevention in these issues is the primary cause of opression. Homophobia runs deep in almost every society, and left to its own devices society without the protection of law, order and a civil code, and a state that is able to enforce the laws that protect "rights" would be witness to all kinds of vigilante brutality that would result from traditional prejudices and social mores. Even in societies where the state officially protects the rights of sexual minorities all kinds of outright thuggery goes on regardless.
Note how quickly homophobic reaction reared its ugly head in Iraq, despite a history of a fairly liberal tradtion, after the destruction of civil society by war and occupation.
Likewise, in the case of the Palestinians, there is no state, no rights, no protection. No place even to begin to have a discourse about rights, the law and its enforcement. This is why, the issue of Israeli Apartheid, race descrimination against Arab-Israelis, the occupation, house demolition, direct attacks by the IDF on institutions of Palestinian government, such as it is, are thematic in any formulated analysis presented by organized Gay and Lesbian Palestinians that I have seen.
I really appreciate your comments, 2fruition. And you're right, there have always been other issues involved. I am wondering, though, if every other struggle in the world of which there are many, become associated with Pride, we could lose the focus of what Pride is about.
Are you hate-filled comments directed at me? I have to assume they are. but I have a question. Does Israel have a policy called Apartheid? No, it does not. South Africa did. What people who use the phrase mean is that Israel's policy is LIKE Apartheid. Therefore it become a matter of opinion, or a "base rhetorical trick". Trying to maintain a neutral position does not mean support for the other side.
Once again, the issue is not the rightness or wrongness of what QuAIA are saying, it is their 'right' to have the government sponsor them to say it at a LGBTQ event.
Oh bloody hell. Either Lily_C is completely dense or Lily_C is a callous fool.
Isreal practices Apartheid. Get a grip FFS. Why do we allow these people here?