On the second Saturday of August, as usual, except in the covid years, as the
newspaper headlines say, Prague was covered in a rainbow. This time, quitepossibly a record number of people, up to sixty thousand, participated in theparade, which culminated the LGBTQ+ festival Prague Pride. Again, a block orblocks formed under the black and pink banner. ---- Since the joke "and whatorientation is that flag?" is already a bit of a mustache in the givenenvironment, let's content ourselves with stating that it is an action of radicalqueers, anarchists, allies from various corners of our scene and, on occasion,apparently more or less random sympathetic people, who, in the atmosphere of arather specific street party, simply joined the section, which, as one of thefew, acts more like a protest.This is not completely new: black-and-pink anarchoqueer or anti-capitalist blocsare common for similar occasions in some places abroad. In the Czech environment,the community around the former Alt*Pride festival, now freely continuing asAct*Pride, is mainly responsible for them.On the one hand, such activities remind us that the first Pride was a riot andbring more consistent perspectives criticizing patriarchy and capitalism. Theydraw attention to groups neglected or directly discriminated against even withinthe LGBTQ+ "community" or stand out against pinkwashing: the abuse of Pride bycorporations. In the Czech environment, to our displeasure, the oil giantExxonMobil and other megacorporations: Amazon, Microsoft, Google...That a more radical view of the matter is no stranger to people was shown on thatSaturday the 13th. Dozens of people arrived in the - admittedly not verypublicized - black-and-pink block from the beginning, and during the rather longprocession, it certainly grew to over a hundred by connecting with friendlygroups. You could see not only the flag in the title colors, but also the more"traditional" black-and-red or "Antihomophobe Action", as well as a number ofpickets about queer liberation, revolution and general things that must havecaused amusing nervousness in the surrounding blocks of various corporations.I, already a bit of a veteran of the black and pink blocks, was especiallypleased by the presence of a lot of significantly younger people who werechanting "A-anti-anti-capitalist" and similar slogans even when the peasants (me)were already looking around where they could grab a beer. The whole event carrieda determined, very pleasant atmosphere and a willingness to incite others not tobe fooled by the words of liberal politicians (at that time sitting in the samegovernment as ultra-conservative homophobic bastards) and corporations, who forone week a year rub themselves on the rainbow.Compared to other years, there was only a minimum of exchanges with fanatics whotry - usually in vain - to poison people's lives at Pride. The only notableexception was the conflict with a group of tourists trying to seize one of thePalestinian flags that appeared in the block in an insidious attack. In asomewhat chaotic moment at the very end of the block, it seemed for a moment thatblows would fly, but the DIY flag and its entourage happily returned to theirown. By the way, people from the corporate block behind us, when we foundourselves somewhat outnumbered by aggressive guys, just stared blankly.Apparently, almost no one on the block noticed the bizarre "incident", and itcertainly didn't spoil my day. We arrived at Letná, where the parade finished, ingood order, maybe just a little choked from the suffocation. That made for ashort sit down with a beer followed by a departure for me. After all, I am one ofthose people who are not attracted to the post-parade mass concerts on the Letneplain, and I would rather give nothing to repeat the incredibly beautifulevenings at Alt*Pride, when you were lounging under the lights in the Clinic'sgarden...But I won't be sentimental, the show must go on. This year, it was heartening tosee that a more radical queer perspective is alive and well - and, after all,they'll be speaking through the aforementioned Act*Pride at the end of August.And as much as I have a number of complaints about Prague Pride, led by thesignificant presence of completely outrageous corporations, I was also reallypleased with the really significant participation in the parade as such. At atime when nationalist and fanatical movements, represented here by the Alliancefor the Family or the Movement for Life, are expanding across Europe, this issignificant.In the anarchoqueer environment, it is not a closed debate, but I dare say thatin addition to asserting our own perspectives, criticizing the often very elitist"rainbow" activism from anti-capitalist, strongly anti-patriarchal positions, wecannot avoid broader struggles, often waged simultaneously by people we wouldotherwise they didn't lean the wheel. Even at this often insufficient, I wouldsay "reform" level, equality is far from complete.As long as queers face bullying and danger, as long as trans* people have toundergo sterilization for official gender reassignment, as long as intersexfriends are seen as some sort of medical curiosity that needs to be "fixed", andultimately, as long as same-sex people can't marry, if they want, there isinjustice until now. And it is our task as anarchists to face it.https://www.afed.cz/text/7719/znovu-pod-cernou-a-ruzovou_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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