Gaza: Gayza

Hello everyone!

My friend Chris is the editor of an excellent queer magazine called Polari (http://www.polarimagazine.com/).

They're running a week about hidden lives and he wants to include two pieces about being gay in Palestine and Israel.

Do you know anyone who would be interested to write? Chris can advize you on length etc.

Akkas

Dear Akkas,

I do understand that this might be coming from good intentions, but I doubt any Palestinian would be interested in participating in this issue of the magazine.

The story being proposed is not only inappropriate at this time, when our bodies, throughout occupied Palestine and especially in Gaza, are being targeted, destroyed and maimed, and disrupting our sexual struggle to become secondary to piecing together our lives under occupation and oppression, and therefore hierarchical (something we are in a constant struggle against). This strikes me as pandering to/consolidating Zionist and normalisation narratives. Anything that seeks to portray and equate the lives of Palestinians with those of Israelis, in any shape or form and draw parallels, especially at this time is a part of an on-going normalisation strategy, and in the case of sexuality, plain Pinkwashing. Should you be interested in our queer activism, of which a huge and integral part of is, resisting Zionist Colonial Occupation, then we can talk.

Why is this equation, and comparison of a secret life so important at this point? If you want to talk about sexuality during this war, maybe we could talk about how this war has affected our sexual and queer struggle and lives. Maybe we can talk about the new sexual and bodily realities that the thousands of Palestinians now have to face, considering the limbs they have lost, the mutilations, the trauma. Think about a person without hands, or without legs or without proper use of their faculties (of which there are thousands) and their sexual lives. What are the sexual prospects do these have? There are people in Gaza who have not changed their clothes for weeks fearing that any moment they would be shelled and do not want to be found dead undressed! Perhaps we should talk about the body in war and how we are being reduced to walking corpses clinging unto the last vestiges of dignity. On the matter of secrecy. Mabe we can consider how this has altogether been destroyed by war, even though before the war it was virtually impossible. When families are forced to live in extremely limited spaces, when strangers have share homes now due to the monstrous destruction? I doubt that any Israeli has to face these questions now, or has ever had to face any of these dilemmas since the establishment of the state 60 years ago.

Ghaith T. Hilal.

That told her.