Minority subjectivities, and among these queer ones, have always been
used in state or religious policies as part of the creation of an enemy.In more recent times we are witnessing a different phenomenon. In recent
years, some governments which, even in the more or less distant past,
have pursued policies of direct and explicit repression of queer people,
have moved on to policies of assimilation and subsumption into the
system. The result is that homophobic practices - which have not
diminished at all in society - are accompanied by "tolerance" policies
with the aim of weakening LGBTQIA+ struggles and bringing them back to a
dimension in which they are useful for maintaining the status quo.
Integration programs, diversity management, corporate sponsors at
LGBTQIA+ pride events, the hairy patronage of institutions and
authorities, not to mention the organized presence of police
associations inside the marches are all summarized in the term "rainbow
washing".
Certainly some battles for the granting of subjective rights, although
they are partial battles, have the potential to improve the material
living conditions of many people; however, concessions must always be
seen as a starting point for other and further claims, and not as
"victories" to be gratefully shared with institutional politics.
The benevolence shown in a paternalistic way by parties and governments
towards fags fits into this scheme. Every concession towards us, or even
simply the tolerance of our existence as minus habentes, is flaunted by
governments and also by political parties traditionally opposed to the
self-determination of bodies, as signs of a moral superiority and
political maturity which is very useful for gaining credibility in some
scenarios politicians. I am referring, for example, to the often
surprising "concession" to hold LGBT parades in the capitals of
decidedly homophobic states, at times when those governments needed to
show a "decent" face, perhaps as part of an entry procedure into the
European Union...
But every state that has undertaken an imperialist mission has always
had to reconstruct itself as civilized and civilizing, and bearer of
mythical values of "progress": in this way it has been possible to arm
the armies to be sent to remote and "other" geographies, which in the
imperial project are represented as populated by barbarians to be
moralized and "child" peoples to be educated and converted. Colonization
is therefore almost a favor done to indigenous peoples, and the
civilizing mission a "burden" for the white man. Rainbow washing plays a
fundamental role in this today, but in reality the path of exploitation
is two-way: Putin's Russia and its satellites, together with the
populist right almost everywhere, make abundant use of the bogeyman of
gender theory as a signifier of a depraved world, pitted against its own
healthy national morality, building the enemy against the backdrop of an
epic battle of civilizations.
Already from the first stages of this phase of the conflict in Ukraine,
propaganda images of the so-called "Unicorn Brigades" were spread (in
reality these are individual LGBTQIA+ people who wear a particular badge
on the regular army uniform) even though we know that - after an
electoral campaign entirely aimed at the "Europeanisation" of Ukraine -
parliamentarians from Zelensky's party have filed homophobic bills, not
far from the well-known law against Russian LGBTQIA+ propaganda.
Israel too, has been showing off a particularly open mentality for much
longer now, presenting Tel Aviv as an oasis of LGBTQIA+ well-being, thus
adding a very large piece to the myth of the "only democracy in the
Middle East", while at the same time maintaining religious components
within it fundamentalists, whose elements have also been responsible for
attacks and murders of LGBTQIA+ people and who have always played a
decisive role in governments' power games. Recently the macabre image of
the rainbow flag displayed on the rubble of Gaza has rightly horrified
many people around the world, although I wonder if it was nothing more
than further humiliation rather than a supposed "liberation".
Queer existences are therefore pulled into the middle even with polar
opposite values, but always above the will of the people, and for ends
that have little to do with their emancipation. But the scenario is more
complex, in a mix of nationalisms and capitalist interests in which the
voices of the people who are currently victims of conflicts, and who
would also like to stage their own specific struggle, are lost in the
logic of the alignments. For some queer people in Ukraine, fighting
against Russia means fighting for survival as queers, and they identify
their struggle with the ongoing war. The Kiev Pride, recently held in
very difficult conditions, had among its demands - in addition to
greater legal protections and equal marriage - also an increase in
armaments for the army.
In Gaza, a territory where homosexuality is still banned by law, queer
people experience the double oppression of being governed by a
profoundly homophobic fundamentalist religious authority, and of being
within a violent state of occupation, which in this phase has a clear
objective of extermination. It is really difficult to envisage a
somewhat positive scenario for them.
And it is therefore to all the people who experience gender oppression
that our solidarity as queer anarchists goes, to their fight for
survival and self-determination, without wanting to show them the way,
but not even sparing criticism of Hamas and to its allies: not doing so
means strengthening existing structures of oppression. Obviously this
does not mean forcing anyone to give up their individual and collective
traditions, beliefs and practices, which in Gaza as in the diaspora play
a very important role in the identity of many people. Nor does it mean
imposing our point of view on gender and sexuality, while we know that
in non-Western societies there are and have been models of gender
identities and roles different from ours, which were regularly repressed
by colonial governments.
If the idea is established within the movement that any act carried out
in a situation of "resistance to the oppressor" is justified, the doors
will open to very dangerous consequences in the event of further
degeneration of the conflict. Unfortunately, many elements much prefer
to demonstrate their solidarity with Palestine by marching in the
streets under the Iranian flag rather than under the Rainbow one.
Rather, let us use our privilege if only to give voice and to offer an
alternative vision that we can see precisely because we are not in the
midst of a conflict. The queer transfeminist voice may be the most
forceful, because it has always been capable of breaking state,
religious and customs constructs; let us not leave our symbols and our
demands in the hands of warmongers, and let us not give any politician a
free hand in playing power games above our heads. The rainbow flag and
queerness must be reclaimed by queer people with a view to total
liberation and class struggle, snatching them away from states, armies,
and anyone who wants to build homelands to defend on them.
Let us not forget that oppression on the basis of class and gender knows
no borders, and that there are oppressed people, dissidents and
deserters in Israel and Russia too. Our solidarity as queer anarchist
people goes out to all dissidents, beyond any camp logic.
Julissa
https://germinalts.noblogs.org/post/2024/07/08/autodeterminazione-frocia-oltre-la-logica-dei-campi-contrapposti/
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