Archives for December 2011

Out-take from upstart, June 1998
 
The last upstart did not have space to mention the “Queer Action” in Belfast, in solidarity with the ILGO (Irish Lesbian and Gay Organisation) of New York.  ILGO has been refused permission by the Ancient Order of Hibernians in America (AOHA) to walk in the St. Patrick’s Day parade.  The ILGO slogan was: Year Eight – end the Hate!  Yes, this has been dragging on for all of the 1990s.  (Parallel to Belfast Pride — something ILGO could use in its publicity).  The Queer Action was comparatively large, and noisy, it drew plenty of attention.  People stopped and had the situation explained to them.
To that extent, it was a very useful exercise, but there were a number of things wrong with it; and (in the interests of our friends in New York, who are engaged in a genuine struggle for civil rights), it would be cowardly not to deal with them head-on.  NIGRA (the Northern Ireland Gay Rights Association), which has organised solidarity actions for six years now, issued a statement which was published (in amended form) by GCN (Gay Community News, Dublin), prior to any actions.  Part of the burden of this, was that NIGRA had picketed the US Consulate-General a number of times, and the staff, (while sympathetic to the aims of the picket) had pointed-out that the dispute was between ILGO, the AOHA, and to an extent, the New York City authorities.
This is the reason why NIGRA, in Dublin, picketed the Aer Lingus office on O’Connell Street.  Aer Lingus, Bord Fáile, and Guinness are among the biggest ‘corporate sponsors’ of the Parade.
The Queer Action in Belfast was held outside the Consulate.  No harm in that.  It is a big, noticeable, public building (with ‘Old Glory’ flying outside of it — it must be the biggest flag in Belfast).  But the banners bore the following legend:
 

AOH,

NYPD, RUC,

Unholy Trinity.

 
There are practical objections to this slogan.  The first one is that most people would not know what AOH stands for.  They might recognise the term Hibs.  Even then, they might assume it was a Scottish football team.  The AOH has experienced a great fall in Ireland, including Ulster.
(Without boring the arse off readers, the Hibs in Ireland, the Board of Erin, were different from the American organisation; which was connected to the AOH in Scotland, but had only a small following in Ireland.  One of the reasons why this ban is disgraceful if that the AOHA has genuine radical traditions: the ‘Mollie Maguires’ and all that.)
Most people would not know what NYPD meant, even insomniac fans of NYPD Blue.  We may be fascinated by Americana, but meeting it in Queen Street in the middle of the afternoon, is disconcerting (again, it may not be a bad thing, it pulls people up, and makes them think.)
NIGRA could have noted that Rudi Giuliani’s web-site lists one of his achievements, as Mayor of New York, (as well as – allegedly – cleaning up crime) as keeping ILGO off the streets!  (There’s an awful lot of votes in red-neck Irish America, all those ‘Reagan-Democrats’ – virtual ‘Dixiecrats’ – in the New York Police Department).
The inclusion of RUC in the slogan is surreal.  What point is being made here?  An obvious one is that he RUC is directly involved in the oppression of the ILGO.  Or possibly that the RUC goes over to New York to get at Irish queers as a sort of hobby.
It is politically unwise to use slogans which are not to the point in a particular situation.
The RUC are not implicated in the situation in New York.  The fight for civil rights for Irish queers to walk in (what everyone knows is a Parade open to every other citizen of New York — to all the world.  The Parade was host to militants of the Indian National Congress in the 1920s), is not served by dragging in extraneous matters.  This is especially so as the RUC have, apart from the bruising encounters outside Gardners bookshop in 1977, been well-behaved even sympathetic, at Gay events in Belfast.
Despite that, it may well be that we will have to have to picket the Chief Constable, other senior officers, or particular RUC stations, because of their refusal to take a reasonable attitude to the treatment of [homo]sexual offenders.  And the biased classification of sex crimes, which emphasises the behaviour of gay men, but disguises sexual, violence against women and children.
Something else which should be discussed is the state of mind of some on the Queer Action.  One participant said he was getting rid of a “lot of anger”.  That should happen at an encounter session, or a therapist’s chambers.  It definitely is not the state of mind that one should have on a picket. What would a person in such a state of mind have done of the police had got heavy?
We are, or should be, in the business of getting he ILGO onto the St Patrick’s Day Parade in New York, sooner rather than later.  That will not come about as a result of self-indulgent posing about the RUC, or any other group, especially if they are not involved in the case.
Belfast, and this region, is important in the campaign against the AOHA, because they have signed-up to a large number of ‘civil rights’ campaigns over the last quarter century.  This is partly the result of guilt: they threw people trying to unfurl a NI Civil Rights Association banner off their march in 1969. And we mean threw.  (If someone tried to unfurl a NI Gay Rights Association banner…?)
There are other ‘ethnic’ marches in New York, and other US cities — ILGO’s fight (like NIGRA’s in Europe), as a ‘test case’.  If ILGO do not succeed, all may return to the status quo ante.  It might also be seen as a signal to unpeel the queers from the African-, Italian-, Greek-, You-name-it-American parades, and corral us into our ghetto — which can then be ignored.
1999’s actions will have to be effective — we should start thinking about them now, rather than a week or two before St Pat’s Day.

A 40th anniversary celebration of GLF (the Gay Liberation Front) was held in the Electric Cinema, Notting Hill on the Saturday before London’s Gay Pride parade (June 2010).  (It is an odd venue, having less than a hundred seats, which though fitted to the floor, feel like armchairs rather than cinema seats.  A young man in the front row was eating a meal – from the rather posh (i. e. expensive) restaurant attached to the Cinema – it looked a bit messy, in all honesty.)
The event was billed Come Together (the title of the GLF’s ‘travelling’ publication.  It ‘expired’ in Lancaster in 1973, in my presence, but it wasn’t my fault — honest.  It was organised by young Tom Barber, and presided over by the DJ Stewart Who?  All went swimmingly — at first — we saw film of (contemporary (1972)) interviews with early London GLF figures.  It was difficult for non-London GLF survivors to tell who was who.  The two main interviewees were a bearded Canadian, and a very pretty English chap.  (I decided the latter was Aubrey Walters – ‘Aubrey Walters’ suggests ‘pretty’.)  The man in question was, I should say, very intelligent.  He, and the Canadian guy, mentioned evangelising ‘the provinces’.  Richard McCance (Nottingham GLF, né Lisburn) made an amused intervention at the end of this, being doubly from ‘the provinces’, Ulster being the genuine article..
(This was a very interesting and absorbing part of the event.  I’m not sneering at ‘the past’.  There was film of early GLF demonstrations — but not ‘Zaps’.)  Even in the (very) early 1970s ‘the provinces’ sounded somewhat patronising.  I shudder to think what Aubrey and the bearded Canuck thought of Belfast GLF (technically still in existence).  GLF in London supported ‘troops out and a united Ireland’.  I was a committed Republican in 1972 / 73, but even then I thought the slogan was internally contradictory.  One pointed question, from Julian Pettifer (Panorama, BBC) on what was the difference between GLF and other Left groups, was rather fumbled by the interviewees.  (The ‘Left’ generally was quite horrified by ‘Gay Lib’.  The ‘Stalinist’ B&ICO (British & Irish Communist Organisation) met with London GLF in 1972).  It was a strength, and a weakness, of GLF that the ‘membership’ (a nebulous notion anyway) ranged from Irish Republican through every degree of Communist, Socialist and Labourite to people like Luke Kennedy, a Tory.  He wore his GLF badge representing Lancaster on University Challenge, on all-UK television in 1973 – 74.  GLF was a state of mind, and not a political programme.
After this (comparatively cosy) section, we got on to a ‘panel discussion’.  It included Alan Wakeman (London GLF veteran standing-in for Peter Tatchell, in Moscow that weekend) and Sami Chakrabarti (General Secretary of Liberty (formerly NCCL – the National Council for Civil Liberties)).  Alan read out “a three sentence e-mail” from Tatchell.  It asked why Liberty had unilaterally expelled CHE (the Campaign for Homosexual Equality) from membership.  Even in the early 1970s, many in GLF were in CHE.  It had ‘National Membership’, for people who found joining a local group inappropriate.  Most current members of CHE are of GLF origin.
Ms. Chakrabarti stonewalled on the matter.  Michael Brown (ex-London GLF / CHE) walked towards the panel wagging a ferocious finger.  He was physically prevented from getting at them by Stewart Who?.  Nettie Pollard (London GLF / CHE) suggested a walkout.  I dumped all of my bits of paper into my bag.  We decided that sitting it out was the better policy.  Chrakabarti still stonewalled, eventually saying she was not prepared to deal with the matter.  Stewart Who? claimed Peter Tatchell was a ‘one-man band’ who represented nobody.  He (‘Mr. Who?’ – as Quentin Crisp might have put it) seemed to think that it was his duty to police, rather than preside over, the event.  He’d been standing near me as I was preparing for the walkout.  I tottered towards the toilet at the end of all the excitement.  He seemed prepared to push me away from the panel.  Discos are not places where things are really allowed to be spontaneous.
Young Tom (Barber) expressed “disappointment” at the course of events.  Why?  He witnessed a genuine, spontaneous, GLF ‘Zap’ — a classic of the genre.  I am glad he did.  We old dears were there to be patronised.  We showed we are geriatric delinquents who still have fire in our bellies.  (Even if our joints are not quite up to legging it across even the relatively small space of the Electric Cinema anymore).
 

****

The Dispute Between CHE And Liberty
Early in 2010 CHE sent a resolution to Liberty for discussion at its AGM.  It was to the effect that a statute of limitation should be put on certain categories of ‘sex crime’.  Specifically ‘crimes’ to do with sex between (male) ‘adults’ and people under the age of consent.  The resolution may have been badly drafted and CHE’s office-holders should maybe have been easier to contact (by Liberty) but the latter was too quick off the mark finding fault with CHE.
CHE is not an unknown quantity, and certainly not to Liberty / NCCL, (which CHE helped keep afloat financially in the 1970s), CHE was well-off and the Council was skint.  At that time the Council had no problems with PIE (the Pædophile Information Exchange) and NF (the fascistic National Front) being members — and having their civil liberties strenuously defended.  Liberty (it appears to me) is attempting to become a Blairite organisation that only deals with the squeaky clean.
CHE’s resolution came about as a result of the activities of its Court Monitor.  Allan Horsfall and Ray Gosling have attended proceedings against ageing men accused of ‘underage’ sex.  Quite often the people they are accused of having sex with were not much younger than they were at the time.  Until comparatively recently the Gay (male) ‘age of consent’ was a ridiculous 21 years old.  These retrospective prosecutions – most ‘offences’ took place 30 (and more) years ago – must amount to ‘oppression’ under any rational interpretation of the Judges Rules?  Many, probably most, of the men brought to Court are not Gay, are closeted, and thereby isolated from any sort of Gay help.  They don’t know about the various Gay groups, or even very much about the burgeoning social ‘scene’.  Quite often, they don’t want to know about such matters.
They may well have been told the old lies about the police being able to keep their names out of the papers.  (The police are well able to keep prosecutions quiet — especially if they involve colleagues, — or they’ve made a balls-up of the case).  Quite often with malice aforethought they inform the journalists who inhabit the lower Courts, about upcoming cases.  And what journo could resist the temptation to destroy the life of a harmless neighbour?
These personal tragedies are not large in number.  That does not mean they are not unjust.  They are probably also ‘unsafe’.  But there will be a long wait before one of these men is found prepared to put up a fight against the whole concept of retrospective ‘justice’.

 
CHE seems to have come to terms with its expulsion by Liberty.  The latter will, clearly, not experience a bad conscience about giving a member of over 40 years standing the shove.  Sami Chakrabarti claimed (before she clammed-up) that Anthony Grey (of the Albany Trust) had withdrawn his own resolution attacking the expulsion.  As he had just recently died, nobody was in a position to challenge her assertion.

Seán McGouran

Dr Rahul Rao (School of ‘Oriental’ and African Studies) gave a talk – more properly led a discussion – (Thurs., 10.02.11) Queer in the Time of Terror, as part of LGBT History Month.  It was held not in a SOAS building but in the Sir David Davies lecture theatre (University College, London) in the Roberts Building.  I was late partly because the Roberts Building does not describe itself as such (on the wall facing Torrington Place).  For some reason I kept assuming that I was in, or ought to have been in, an LSE (London School of Economics) building.*
Dr Rao asked ‘how do we protect… respect… multiple identities in a global society?’.  This was a challenge to (western) LGBT activists.  I think Dr Rao noticed a white bearded ‘noddy’ in the corner of the lecture theatre (which has ‘concealed’ but ‘third degree’, sight destroying bright lighting).  His argument was much the same as this publication.  ‘Western’ Gay activists are often in too much of a hurry to ‘solidarise’ with apparently oppressed Gay women and men in the developing world to actually examine the real circumstances.  Dr. Rao discussed the execution of two male mid- to late teenagers in Iran some years ago, and the current situation in Uganda.
The Iranian 16-18 year olds were depicted in the western Gay and liberal (and even right wing) media, as victims of an oppressive homophobic Islamist (Islamo-fascist) regime.  The complication that they had raped and killed a twelve year old boy was not allowed to interfere with our moral outrage.  Dr. Rao noted not particularly subtle elements in the Persian / Farsi language.  Crude translation allowed western media to claim that the trial and punishment were the outcome of a simple, consensual sexual encounter — and not a crime against the youngster’s person, and life.
He noted another aspect of this case.  It led to homophobic Islamophobic politicians and commentators in the USA, and elsewhere, (the British writer Melanie Phillips, for example) using this, alleged homophobia, as a stick with which to beat Iran.  This is upstart‘s major problem with these various cases.  Gay activists are prepared to think the worst of those who run, as examples, Iran, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.  They appear not to have similar problems with the US’s and UK’s establishments.  Section 28 (UK) was introduced at the height of the AIDS crisis.  The Conservatives in the current Cabinet, ‘bag-carriers’ at that point, raised no objections.  The current US Administration is not a great improvement on George W Bush’s, despite Obama getting most of the – substantial – Gay vote.
Gay people should be extremely careful about being seen as the ‘human face’ of ‘Western’ imperialism.  Particularly when it wears its ‘human rights’ mask.  That is not to argue that some punishments are acceptable.  Hanging even particularly brutal 16 year olds is pretty gross by upstart‘s standards — but not by the standards of the rulers of the United States of America.  The USA has the biggest per capita prison population on the planet.  It is second on the list for persons executed.  If you are a young male African-American, the likelihood of your being in prison, and on ‘Death Row’ is very high.  This is emphasised because some of Dr Rao’s audience implied that he approved of Iran’s punitive policies.  That is almost certainly not accurate.  Even if it were accurate it is, (presumably deliberately), tangential.  This was a discussion of our rights and not of the judicial and penal policies of individual states.  ‘The West’ has hardly covered itself in libertarian glory on these matters.
Dr Rao examined the attitudes of various British and American bodies to this case.  Peter Thatchell and Outrage used the ‘Islamo-fascist’ handle (which is relatively subtle, as it implies that there are non-fascist followers of Islam).  Andrew Sullivan (UK-born, but based in the US) claimed that Islam was simply anti-Gay, Doug Ireland said much the same.  Scott Long took a more ‘nuanced’ view of the matter.  (The latter two are American activists dealing with matters outside the USA, mostly through the San Francisco-based ILGHRC – International Lesbian & Gay Human Rights Commission).  Iran is an independent – democratic – state.  Amnesty International pointed out that Iran had signed various international agreements and treaties concerning the execution of juveniles.
My own response to this was a series of little thrills of recognition.  Gay activists in Northern Ireland, in the NI Gay Rights Association (named in emulation of NICRA, the NI Civil Rights Association), got plenty of ‘advice’ from activists in the rest of these islands.  (We got some gratuitous advice from the US.  There was some – but not much – from mainland Europe).  The advice was mostly to the effect that we should throw our mighty organisation behind the ‘national [or national liberation] struggle’.  Our response that it was not as straightforward as they appeared to believe.  There were (close up) all sorts of complications to take into consideration.  We were told that we should not be asking the British Government to change the law.  Nobody ever suggested an alternative – other than to contain ourselves in humility and patience – or support the IRA.  (The fact that there were two – even three – credible Republican armies rarely entered into these discussions).
The fact that NIGRA, and associated organisations – like Cara-Friend – would have been rendered totally ineffective mattered not a jot.  Even the 1981 (European Court of Human Rights) ‘Dudgeon judgement’ was deemed to be a mistake.  Gays Against Imperialism (GAI, a short-lived group consisting mainly of persons from Cork and Dublin) shortly after the judgement claimed that NIGRA was seeking ‘respectability’.  We were snuggling up to the Thatcher Government.  We had just forced Mrs T do an (unwanted and unwonted) U-turn.  We were embattled with the police over the killing of Anthony McCleave.  (The RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary) had claimed it was an accident and not a murder.  Despite GAI (and the police), NIGRA and Anthony’s family, got this assertion overturned in the longest Coroner’s Inquest in Commonwealth history.)
This sort of absurdity continued for years.  A favourite example was the assertion, by a young woman attending the NUS (National Union of Students) Lesbian and Gay Liberation conference, that she had visited the ‘Falls Hill Road’.  There is no such place.  Simple faith is a wonderful thing.  It’s just a pity it can get people killed.  We probably ought not to have been (as one suspects people in the actual  ‘third world’ / ‘global south’ were and are) so polite with such visitors.  Derisive laughter would have been the best response to a lot of the nonsense.
To return to Dr Rao’s talk, the Iranian elite, in embracing ‘modernity’ embraced homophobia (that was ‘modernity’, in Hidden from History ISBN 0453006892 (Penguin / NAL) Simon Karlinsky writes that the ant-Gay laws introduced by Tsar Peter in the early 18th century were part of his modernisation of Russia.)  Ireland underwent a somewhat similar experience.  According to the imperial authority the Irish were effeminate, flighty, ungovernable and probably unable to govern themselves.  The Irish toughened themselves up – though anti-Gay feelings, as such, were always pretty low-key.  (Fianna Fáil’s Máire Geoghegan-Quinn dumped the anti-Gay laws in part because they were imperial leftovers).   Iran was deemed to be part of Burton’s ‘Sodatic Zone’ where people were more prone (than manly white Europeans, anyway) to sodomy.  Men, and particularly teenage boys, in Iranian art could be portrayed as beautifully androgynous.  All this was derided, and dumped in closets, when Iran decided to become ‘western’.
Today, legalising homosexuality is ‘western’ but places like Iran have turned their backs on modernity, and are re-embracing a ‘masculinist’ version of their own traditions.  (Dr. Rao did not mention it, but the collapse of Bolshevism cut off a path to ‘modernity’ that was not humiliatingly ‘western’-imitative).  He pointed out that some versions of ‘modernity’ have ambiguous implications.  The British in India abolished suttee (the suicide, of wives on their husband’s funeral pyres).  It was a matter of brown-skinned women being saved from brown-skinned men — by white-skinned men.
Peter Thatchell (who asked Seán Óg Garland if NIGRA President, PA Mag Lochlainn (a founder member of John Hume’s SDLP) was ‘pro-British’) got a lot of (partly unintentional) ‘stick’ in this discussion.  In an interview in 2007 he said he would keep on campaigning (about Iran, for example) “regardless of the consequences in the world”.  Could this be a misunderstanding?  Such a position is simply fanatical.  Peter does seem to have opinions that appear not to change when circumstances change.  (He has been less inclined to pontificate about ‘Ireland’ lately.)  LGBT people in Nigeria and Uganda did not all welcome his interventions.  His claim that groups opposed to the one he wanted to (patronise?) in Uganda were motivated by jealousy was not – to put it mildly – diplomatic.
Two people in the audience attacked Dr Rao.  One was a thirty-something man, the other a man of my age (sixty-something).  The latter man seemed to agree with the proposition that ‘metropolitan’ people had to right to make their feelings (we were definitely dealing with feelings here) known, and damn the consequences.  The younger man defended Peter Thatchell’s record.  He’d been around since 1968 / ’69.  In 1972 he’d been ‘beaten up’ while engaged in a ‘zap’ of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. If the RCP, and other agencies, had been treated ‘sensitively’ nothing would have happened.  (The first editor of Gay Star, Peter Brooke, took part in that same zap – he managed not to get beaten up).
This man’s argument is based on the notion that society, and Societies, are monolithic.  Even in the DUP (Democratic Unionist, Dr Paisley’s Party) there are people who are not obsessed with other people’s sexuality.  There are a fair number of Gay women and men active in the Party.  It is the ‘democratic’ and the ‘unionist’ that attracted them.  There is the old cliché ‘horses for courses’.  It is pointless fixing bayonets and charging at the Methodists in Ireland — the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches might be in need of a jag now and again.  But only ‘now and again’, most Prods and Papes are pretty easy-going about queers.
There were other questions and comments, including from an African-American man and woman, presumably students.  The man said that ‘third world’ states “pushing-back” against Western values is understandable, if regrettable, especially as many western states, societies and individual politicians are being hypocritical.  The young woman had such a strong accent that I did not really understand her intervention.  (Possibly a touch of the snow calling the cocaine… I did not get to speak.  My accent would probably have been incomprehensible to her).
This was a very interesting discussion.  It is a pity it could not have gone on longer, or possibly it could be reconvened.   It is a pity it was not reported.  Gay / LGBT London is becoming an intellectual dust bowl.  The substance of Dr Rao’s talk touches on a crucial aspect of the work of Gay organisations in the ‘global North’ / ‘advanced’ world.  Which is, these days, solidarity with our sisters and brothers in the ‘developing’ world / global South.
Many Gay liberationists appear to have no problems echoing the glib (and often racist) language of our various Establishments.  As implied above, our (Gay) press has become almost entirely commercialised — it’s nearly all fucking and fashion.  The odd time politics (especially the politics of the Islamic world) intrudes, one might as well be reading handouts from the English Defence League (led by a chap called Lennon – a fine, ancient, County Armagh name).  I have – I am afraid – no solution to this problem.  Western Gay peoples’ minds are closing at the same rate as those of our fellow-citizens.

Seán McGouran

 
The title of this talk / discussion Queer in the Time of Terror is the same as Dr Rahul Rao’s chapter in a book:
Queer Perspectives on the Law,
edited by Arvind Narrain and Alok Gupta
Yoda Press, New Delhi — (can’t find an ISBN number)
 
* To read about various LSE events read Labour & TU Review, Irish Political Review and other publications — try www.atholbooks.org.