Russia: The Empire Strikes Back!

L: Bad but unboring Russian activist holds easily comprehensible sign, Moscow, September 25; R: Good but boring Russian activists hold signs nobody cares about, Moscow, September 24. Police equally unimpressed.

John Aravosis published an article about Nikolai Alekseev’s latest Moscow protest on his blog today. It’s interesting how he excuses doing this. He objects to other media covering Alekseev (“I’ve noticed some top gay ‘news’ sites continuing to go to the anti-Semite Alexeyev for comment”) but not to himself covering Alekseev. He squares the circle by pretending that Alekseev wasn’t behind the demonstration (“it’s unfortunate that the protesters included in their group known anti-Semite, Nikolai Alexeyev“) when of course Alekseev didn’t simply happen along for the ride, he organized the whole thing. It’s all a bit like: I didn’t want to show you Britney Spears’ privates on my blog, people, it’s just that they walked right onto my computer screen.

The truth is, it’s much more sexy and clickworthy, from an American perspective, to run photos of Alekseev holding an catchy English-language sign (no Google Translate needed!) and getting chased by police, than photos of other Russians holding up Russian slogans about substantive things like the fate of Russia that only Russians care about. It would be nice if Aravosis would admit this — and admit there’s a symbiotic relation between the Alekseev lust for controversy and the Aravosis lust for blog hits. It would spare us all the denials...

Bull-fighter Scott Long - the writer and campaigner who's worked together with LGBT Russians for Human Rights Watch - writes perceptively, yet again, on his excellent blog, A Paper Bird, on the strange priorities of the US/UK media in the debate about LGBT Russians, and the hypocrisies of the likes of AmericaBlogGay's Michael Aravosis - brave champion of the far-right, racist and Zionist, Michael Lucas.
In a companion piece yesterday, In Russia They Resist Too, Long asks why a one-man shouty interruption at an opera house in New York "in solidarity with LGBT Russians" got so much media coverage here, while a protest in Moscow against homophobia in schools got next-to zero.

"There was a demonstration in Moscow too yesterday – even if nobody in New York paid much attention. You can demonstrate in Moscow: the LGBT and democracy movements in Russia may be in retreat but are not silent or submissive. This is important to understand, since the tendency now is to paint them as pure victims who can’t say anything for themselves."

Note also how on the day of the #Russia4Love protests earlier this month, an action outside the Russian Embassy in London, and ones in other cities around the world, got massive coverage - while the infinitely more meaningful and important protests in 14 Russian cities by your actual LGBT Russians was ignored.

Scott Long reprints this photo from the NYC Met protest and comments...

"We all know Pastor Niemoller’s moving message. Yet here it isn’t true. They didn’t come for the gays first. Putin came for the Chechens first (actually, Yeltsin did before him); for the journalists; for the odd oligarch and whistleblower; for the punk rock feminists and the environmentalists; for the protest marchers; and then, somewhere down the list, he came for the gays. Where were we when the truth-seekers were slaughtered, when Pussy Riot went to prison, or when Grozny burned? Would things be different now, if some of that emotion had been transmuted into actions back when the right-wing thugs were mainly killing black people; or when the “foreign agents” law was first bruited about; or when cops were beating up Muscovites in the street after a faked election?"

All too often we have seen acts of "It's all about ME!" solipsism masquerading as acts of solidarity.

To complete a stunning, damning quintent* of recent articles, Long writes here about the sudden volte face over fallen idol Nikolai Alekseev, by those who knew of his dodgy political leanings and anti-semitic outbursts, but were silent about them until he began criticising the tactics of US/UK campaigners...

"[who] had all the evidence years ago of the man’s instability and hatred. It’s important to tell the truth. It’s important, because the Alekseev story reveals a lot about the potential pathologies of gay activism: the cult of celebrity, the belief in saviors rather than social movements, the way Westerners project their desires and fantasies onto other countries. Why did Doug [Ireland] and others keep promoting Alekseev, and actively denigrating other Russian activists? They damaged the whole Russian LGBT movement in the process. They shouldn’t get off the hook. And we need to learn lessons from how they went so wrong..."

Quite.

And finally.. Fagburn read today about a fundraising and awareness event, To Russia LGBT With Love, held in London next month - where apparently all money raised is going to the Peter Tatchell Foundation - ie to Peter, who pays himself £29,000 a year from kind donations - and oddly not to LGBT Russian groups, who surely need it more.

If true it would make the whole event look ridiculous and hypocritical, and another example of "The West knows best" gay cultural imperialism we witness above.

I've asked the organisers to confirm this, and will let you know when they reply...

A very nice man from Dalston Superstore told me they haven't decided which charities yet, and they're now working on organising video speakers from Russia.

* "Queer Quislings": Getting Russia Wrong and Top Guns: Last Words On Johnny Weir.

David Norris: Socrates, Plato & Guys Like Me

'Irish presidential hopeful David Norris in row over paedophilia remarks'
Really?
I wonder what David actually said.

“We got into an academic discussion about Plato’s Symposium and the things that were discussed in that. It was ancient Greek classical literature.
“I made a distinction between paedophilia and pederasty, which is a totally different thing. To the average person it would not make any difference I suppose but to me it did because I knew what I was talking about. That got mixed up and stayed mixed up.
“I abhor with every fibre of my being the idea of interference with children, sexual abuse, physical abuse and emotional abuse. My record on that speaks for itself.”
Asked about the distinction between pederasty and paedophilia he said the former was referred to in Plato’s Symposium .
“They discussed stuff and they talk about love between two men and the system in Greece where an older man at the gymnasium took a younger man, but a man, classified as over the age of consent in this country, under his wing and lovingly started a relationship with him. They were proud of it.
“The debate on the Symposium is very interesting because at the end of it, Alchibiades, who is a beautiful young man, has offered himself to Socrates. Socrates refuses because he says wisdom is forever but the body perishes.”
He said it was a mistake to have allowed himself get involved in what he said was an “academic and intellectual discussion” on pederasty. He maintained he was flabbergasted by the questions put to him by Ms Burke, and their graphical content, and should have got up and left the restaurant.
“I was foolish. I should not have let myself get into an academic discussion with somebody I knew only as a restaurant critic. I felt astonished at the questions. I said I did not want to talk about sex and she said that in the article.”

The Irish Times.
Senator David Norris is running for Irish President.
He should have learnt not to talk sense in the Age of Stupid.
And that good men tend to get crucified.

Egypt & Iran: Gay Rights & The Gay Right

Everyone's pleased about the fall of Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak, right?
Wrong.
Adocate columnist, porn "entrepreneur" and gay NeoCon, Michael Lucas, is gonna be really pissed off.
In his latest column, Democracy In Egypt A Myth?, Lucas writes;
"Hope, freedom, and democracy — these are three words that have little or nothing to do with what’s happening in Egypt at the moment. Yet utterly ignorant newscasters and liberal bloggers seem to equate the situation there to Tiananmen Square — where protesters two decades ago risked life and limb in a face-off with China’s authoritarian leaders. Of course, in China they lost.
"The frightening thing is that the protesters in Egypt are looking more and more likely to topple Egypt’s regime and replace it with something far worse. We, as gay people and Americans, shouldn’t be surprised by the horrors likely to come. We shouldn’t buy into the false and ignorant hopes of those on the left who falsely frame the events unfolding in Cairo and other cities in Egypt as a fight for human rights."
Something that no informed analyst of the situation in Egypt thinks, but there you go.
Indeed Khalid Zaid, a gay Egyptian man who's been granted asylum in the US, has written in reply on Gay.com;
"In 2001, after many years in Egypt I was granted asylum by the US following an arrest for suspicion of being gay. In Egypt, there simply are no human rights. Whoever thinks that there are such freedoms should actually move there rather than remotely label the aspirations of protesters as false or ignorant hopes! There is nothing frightening about an awakening that is long overdue.
"It will not be easy to predict the upcoming leadership in Egypt. Due to the complexity of the situation, it is presumptuous to assume that it will fall into the hands of radical Islamists...
"It's true that the first thing they [The Muslim Brotherhood] have promised to do is hold a referendum on Egypt's peace treaty with Israel. Regardless of what anyone tells you, they are not part of a master plan to impose Sharia law on the entire Arab world."
"Inciting baseless panic about the creation of an Islamic, anti-gay, anti-Western regime is a reckless act stemming from fears over Israel's security and stability."
Michael Lucas has form on this sort of far-right scaremongering - he bends over backwards to defend every Zionist crime and has baldly stated;
"I hate Muslims... They have not contributed to civilization in any way, in any field — political thought, science, music, architecture, nothing for century after century. What do they produce? Carpets."
The gay right's championing of gay rights in the Middle East is a sadly familiar saw these days - seemingly unaware that right-wing politicians have always been the most vociferous opponents of gay rights in any country in the world.
The flipside are all those gushing "Don't mention the occupation" travel features about Israel in the gay media - Pinkwash, about trips paid for by the Israeli government.
In January New York's Gay City News ran a bizarre feature; 'Sanctions Must Respond to Iran’s Anti-Gay Genocide' by one Benjamin Weinthal.
(Gay City News regularly publishes nutty rants about Iran by Doug Ireland - who Weinthal quotes approvingly. He also joins in Ireland's attacks on Human Rights Watch - who he believes “continues to be driven by an anti-Israel bias").
Weinthal is a regular contributor to The Weekly Standard, known as "The Neo-Con Bible", and a fellow at Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a neo-conservative think tank.
Their policy on Iran? "Pursuit of even “tougher” sanctions, including measures intended to terminate non-U.S. purchases of Iranian oil. And, when that doesn’t work, we’ll give war another chance."
Presumably cause the last two have worked out so well.
It's shameful that the gay press regularly publishes such crude far Right propaganda.

Iran: Who's Sorry Now?

Doug Ireland has just written an article for Gay City News; An Overdue Apology.
"Human Rights Watch (HRW), the world’s largest and most prestigious human rights organization, has made a stunning public apology to Britain’s iconic gay and human rights activist, Peter Tatchell, for attacks heaped on him by HRW’s Scott Long, who directs the organization’s LGBT program."
But Human Rights Watch apology to Tatchell is far less "stunning" than the above line by Ireland might lead you to believe.
"Human Rights Watch (HRW) apologizes to Peter Tatchell for a number of inappropriate and disparaging comments made about him in recent years by Scott Long, director of HRW's LGBT program. We recognise that personal attacks have no place in the human rights movement."
Scott Long has said; "Although we have our different viewpoints, I respect Peter Tatchell's contribution to human rights and apologize for any condemnatory and intemperate allegations made in haste and for any inaccurate statements made in my personal capacity."
In a statement released on June 30th (available here), Tatchell wrote; “Mr Long’s falsehoods and personal attacks were many and varied. They included a highly libellous and defamatory essay written by him, which appeared in the March 2009 issue of the journal Contemporary Politics, published by Routledge, which is part of the Taylor and Francis publishing group.
"This essay ['Unbearable Witness'] made inaccurate allegations. It grossly misrepresented and denigrated my campaigns in defence of gay people persecuted by Iran and in opposition to Islamist fundamentalism."
“I acted in good faith when I opposed the execution of Iranians accused of homosexuality and when I campaigned against fundamentalist Islam in Britain and worldwide."
Fair enough.
How good of Ireland to write such a nice piece in support of Tatchell.
Indeed the first half of his article is spent documenting Tatchell's campaigning work - you have to wait a while to find out what the apology was actually for.
Ireland's article is also headed by a photo of Tatchell's badly bruised face after he was beaten up by Neo-Nazis at a gay protest in Moscow in 2007.
It's a very emotive image.
As was that now infamous photo of the two Iranian boys, Ayaz Marhoni and Mahmoud Asgari, standing at a makeshift gallows about to be hanged.
Which is how this row started.
Both Doug Ireland and Peter Tatchell claimed that those two young men were hanged because they were gay.
Neither Ireland or Tatchell mention that their row with Long began after he pointed out there was no evidence for this.
Long has argued "Europe and the US have seen a public campaign in recent years to identify executions - often random ones - in Iran as killings of gay men. Pictures of the horrific public hanging in Mashhad in 2005 of Ayaz Marhoni and Mahmoud Asgari - they were "convicted, in all likelihood, of the rape of a 13-year-old boy while both were minors - spread virally round the world like a postmodern Pieta. Monstrous, yes: but there is no conclusive evidence that they were gay or that consensual homosexual acts had anything to do with their judicial killing."
But the earlier version of their story had been retold so often - by journalists who didn't take two minutes to check its veracity - that to point this out had become a heresy, and the hate campaign against Scott Long began.
Doug Ireland has written several articles denouncing Scott Long - check his website.
But it should have been no more controversial than pointing out there's no evidence that German soldiers bounced Belgian babies on their bayonets during the First World War.
It seems to me Scott Long has been rather hounded - and his only "crime" has been trying to find out the truth.
It's not his fault if some other people got angry as they thought it made them look like liars.
To his credit, Ireland's article does provide a link to an essay by Long critical of their position, The Issue Is Torture, but only it seems to express surprise that it remains on HRW's website.
And Ireland does put a "full disclosure" after his article pointing out that; "Long’s attacks have also focused on this newspaper and this reporter."
But neither Tatchell or Ireland have said what they now think Ayaz and Mahmoud's crimes actually were.
Have they changed their minds?
Do they now admit that they may have been wrong?
Both men have a long histories of courageous work for campaigning for socialism and lesbian and gay justice, but I believe this episode has demeaned them.
Maybe Doug Ireland and Peter Tatchell should apologise to Scott Long?