Being Gay and Palestinian
As this Economist article makes clear (but perhaps not clear enough), despite its propaganda, Israel is not interested in Palestinian gay men except as vulnerable subjects to blackmail and make into collaborators.
The article is exclusively about gay Palestinian men, not women, who do not have the men's particular experience. However, Israel's Shin Beit has used attitudes to women's sexuality as a way to blackmail both non-gay men and women into collaboration.
The only way to prevent such blackmail is to fight against homophobia and sexual discrimination in Palestinian society. Among other things, they do leave Palestinian society vulnerable for exploitation of this kind. But if men and women, gay and straight, are not made to feel ashamed of their sexuality, if their sexual choices are not criminalized, then they will not be such easy victims of colonial blackmail.
In other words, speaking up against homophobia and sexual discrimination should be part of an anti-colonial national resistance strategy.
Labels: gay rights, sexuality
posted by Amal A @ 2:50 PM
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4 Comments:
Yes, Amal, let's fix this! I would, however, say, contrary to the argument of the article, which tires to promote Israel as a tolerant society, that gays in the Arab world would not need the intervention of Aguda to proceed with their daily lives, and sexual practices. The question is: does one need to say I am gay to be gay? I think it is the identity of being gay that will be so difficult for the Arab world to embrace, not the sexual practices of gays, about which Arab societies are perfectly aware.
My sense also is that corrupt Arab governments (also known as secular governments) will certainly crash whoever identifies as gay in order to please a certain Azhar ulama, etc. and stay in power.
The question Arab gays is therefore: to identify or not to identify as gay!
I think that depends on which country you are talking about, NG, surely, because as Amal says homosexual acts are criminalised in some of the Arab states and you don't need to be the sort of person who wants to go on Gay Pride marches to be oppressed by that.
Lynn
sexual discrimination is something we've been raised on generations after generations..
and i don't know why many men always have religious reference to there behavior against women/ gay men..
i remember we went through a lot of hassle in Cairo to make the government stop writing "Divorced" at some women ID's , because such word makes people treat divorced women in a strange way.. and asking questions...!
as usual it's out of context .. but i wanted to agree...
links to relevant gay/lesbian groups in Palestine (I know the first and heard about the second)
http://www.alqaws.org/?id=330
http://www.aswatgroup.org/english/
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