Great Corrections Of Our Time: Associated Press

Last week, in an article on the controversial rainbow flag mural a Palestinian artist painted on Israel’s apartheid wall, the Associated Press made this claim: “A 1951 Jordanian law banning homosexual acts remains in effect in the West Bank, as does a ban in Gaza passed by British authorities in 1936.”

In fact, there is no law in the West Bank, or in Jordan, that bans sexual relations between consenting adults of the same sex.

Yesterday, several days after I contacted AP to inform them of this, they issued the following correction:

In a story June 30 about Palestinian protesters whitewashing a gay pride rainbow flag, The Associated Press reported erroneously that homosexual acts are banned by law in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. While homosexuality is largely taboo in Palestinian society, there are no laws specifically banning homosexual acts.

This may surprise people, since the notion that homosexual activity is criminal – and even punishable by death – is a staple of a form of anti-Palestinian propaganda called pinkwashing...

Electronic Intifada.

Myths about how homosexuality is oppressed in other Arab and Middle Eastern countries are very popular in the Western media - they are rarely corrected.

But that's Orientalism for you.

Gay Travel: Come To Tel Aviv - Cuz IDF Hotties!

'Everyone there seemed really nice actually... I think the three year mandatory army service for citizens does wonders on all their bodies.'

After destroying the morality of America with her hilarious and catchy songs, the ever-delicious Willam has set her sights on The Holy Land of Israel, where she made a few appearances in Tel Aviv and marched in the Tel Aviv Pride parade.

Fortunately, she took a moment out of her busy jet-set schedule and graced us with some highlights of why she thinks Tel Aviv, the center of LGBT life in the Middle East, is such a spectacular place...

• Everyone there seemed really nice actually. They like to talk and are 100 percent cool with LGBT folks. Totally Westernized in that sense.

• The men are beyond compare. I think the three year mandatory army service for citizens does wonders on all their bodies.

Queerty - these are but edited racist Orientalist state power fetishising highlights.

One of three puff pieces on Tel Aviv they ran last week. 

Gay media trips to 'the Holy Land of Israel' are paid for by the Israeli government, incidentally.

Israel: A map for the gay tourist.

Jonathan Jones: The Top 10 Male Nudes In Art

No, I'm not making this up.

The Guardian's esteemed art critic, Jonathan Jones, celebrates the 'Top ten male nudes' in your actual art.

Something of an expert in this field, who can forget Jonathan's classic piece on Orientalism where he began by saying this male nude was a woman?

In an article foregrounded by accusing Edward Said of 'promoting ignorance'.

David Aaronovitch: If I Were Gay

A sub-header exposes the rather small flaw in David Aaronovitch's argument in his article in The Times.

Astonishing.

But then David thinks beastly 'backwards' foreign types can be 'civilised' by US and UK bombs.

This unthinkpiece is a reply to the editor of Think Africa Press, David Schneider's call for Western countries not to cut aid, and consider the consequences of all their actions for LGBT Ugandans.

A view supported by Frank Mugisha the director of Sexual Minorities Uganda. 

Still I bet they enjoy having an arrogant straight white Orientalist westerner like Mr Aaronovitch telling them what he thinks is best for them.

PS Loving that If I were gay... 30-day trial only £1 juxtapostion. 

Edward Said: And No-one Listened

"I just felt I couldn't write for the American media anymore... they just turned into mouthpieces of the status quo."

The second greatest man I ever met.

We were at the Dome next to Brighton Pavilion and I wanted to ask him about that great monument to Orientalism.
And how 'Edward Said' sounds like the title for a Velvet Underground song.
But I didn't have the time.
He signed his book.
Then he died.
x

Arafat: Poisonous Rumours

Suspicions that the former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was poisoned will be strengthened by the discovery by Swiss scientists of 18 times the normal level of radioactive polonium in his remains.
Mr Arafat, who had long symbolised the Palestinians fight for their own state, died on 11 November 2004 from an illness that was never fully diagnosed by his doctors.
Swiss scientists have been carrying out tests on tissue taken from Mr Arafat’s body and personal items with which he was brought into close contact.
They say they are confident up to an 83 per cent level that the Palestinian leader was poisoned and suspect that the cause may be polonium...
The report only examined what killed Mr Arafat not whether or not he was deliberately poisoned.
The death of Mr Arafat seriously weakened the Palestinian cause, of which he had been the enduring symbol for almost 40 years, and removed the one figure who could unite the diverse and quarrelsome Palestinian groups...

The new-look Independent have splashed this big across their front-page.

Though heading it The Smoking Gun?, under a story about the assassination of JFK, might suggest they think it's a conspiracy theory.
The Independent's usually reliable Middle East correspondent, Robert Fisk, has looked into its plausibility before here.

The news causes the Electronic Intifada to recall what happened last year when rumours of Arafat being poisoned first gained credence - Zionists began concocting their own conspiracy theory.

                                       ******************

While Israel markets itself as the most gay-friendly country in the world, its PR hacks are busy reviving homophobic rumors that Arafat was a gay “sexual deviant” who died of AIDS due to his promiscuity.

On Tuesday, Aljazeera broke a bombshell story that the clothes Arafat wore as he died of a sudden and mysterious illness in 2004, contained strong traces of the lethal radioactive element polonium, raising the possibility that he may have been poisoned...

Following the Aljazeera report, Lenny Ben-David, former Deputy Chief of Mission at the Israeli Embassy in Washington and current public relations consultant to the Israeli government, posted a lurid article at The Times of Israel reviving rumors that Arafat died of AIDS and blaming his “sexual proclivities”:

Yasser Arafat was a murderous, genocidal, diabolical, duplicitous sexual deviant who died at the age of 75. He was despised by Arab and Israeli alike.

Ben-David dismisses the possibility that Arafat was poisoned and asserts:

Less romantic and mythical, however, is the more likely cause of Arafat’s death – AIDS.
Arafat’s sexual proclivities have been an open secret for years. The former head of Rumanian intelligence, Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, disclosed in his book “Red Horizons,” that one of his officers reported, “the ‘Fedayee’ [Arafat’s code name] is in his bedroom making love to his bodyguard. The one I knew was his latest lover. He’s playing tiger again. The officer monitoring his microphones connected me live with the bedroom, and the squawling almost broke my eardrums. Arafat was roaring like a tiger, and his lover yelping like a hyena.”

In addition to this “evidence,” Ben-David cites another piece of “proof” that has circulated widely on Zionist websites:

After Arafat’s death, his personal physician admitted in a TV interview that his patient died of AIDS.

Both of these pieces of “evidence” are junk...

                                    ***********************

Out magazine article by James Kirchick - filed appropriately under 'Entertainment'
Note comedy limp wrist.

The author, Ali Abunimah, proceeds to routinely and roundly demolish both of them.

Which didn't stop the right-wing Homocon, James Kirchick, pushing both these fictions in the American gay media.
James is the jerk who hijacked a TV debate about Chelsea Manning to tell lies about Russia, not uncoincidentally.
Rumours that Arafat was a pederast have long been popular with the Western right; it feeds into a domestic Orientalist myth of the Arab as sexually deviant, and is thought to discredit him amongst his own constituency in the Middle East.
One may have noticed something of a paradox in this propaganda; "Arabs are queer - Arabs hate queers!"
But anyway, the Electronic Intifada conclude...

Why should Arafat’s sexuality be of interest to propagandists loyal to an Israeli “state” that is going to great pains to present itself as a haven of gay rights amid an ocean of intolerance and to attract gay tourists and their money to Tel Aviv?

According to former Israeli diplomat and current Israeli PR hack Lenny Ben-David, all these gay tourists are nothing more than “sexual deviants.”

The lurid stories and lies about Arafat’s sexual relationships aim to provoke homphobic reactions and marshal this homophobia to produce hostility and revulsion at Arafat, and to delegitimize him in the eyes of an Arab audience that is presumed to always be disgusted by such behavior.

These Israeli reactions belie Israel’s “pink” marketing and expose the homphobia that exists at the heart of so much of its propaganda.

Qatar: What's (Really) Going On (In Kuwait)?

I first noticed it yesterday on Pink News, the UK’s G-and-sometimes-LBT news website: a new horror from the Persian Gulf. “It was revealed that Gulf Cooperative Countries introduced new rules to ‘detect’ and ban gay people from entering the country.” 

It doesn’t take long for any story about Arabs and sex to go viral. In this case, given that Qatar is hosting the 2022 World Cup, the headlines hitched a ride with anxieties over the Sochi Olympics, and turned into warnings about threats to sports. 

Peter Tatchell leapt in headfirst, proclaiming that “FIFA now has no option but to cancel the world cup,” because “gay players and spectators will be banned from attending.” The story was soon in the Daily Mail: “Gulf states to introduce medical testing on travellers to ‘detect’ gay people.” Russia Today picked it up (probably hoping that they could lure Jamie Kirchick to move his strip show to Al Jazeera). Of course it spread all over Twitter...

Scott Long, Kuwait’s “medical screening for gays”: Truth, fiction, and why it’s not a “gay” issue.

Things are once again a bit more complicated and very different from the usual screaming from certain queer quarters.
Forgive my clumsy summary, but in fine; there is no new law, someone from the Kuwait health department mentioned in an interview the already existing medical screenings of new foreign workers, and proposed these could also check for "the third sex" - this is about ongoing moral panics about migrant labour, and transphobia (it is unclear what, if anything, he proposes doing about "tests" for homosexuality, if that were possible).
This story's distortion and over-excitable transmission, as ever, says much about our own Islamophobia and Orientalism.

"So let’s be clear: this is a matter of employment screening – of people coming into the Gulf to live and work, people who already have to undergo medical testing on arrival. It’s not a screening for every arrival at the airport. It does not mean, as Tatchell claimed, “that gay players and spectators will be banned from attending the football world cup.” Whatever Dr. Mindkar has in mind, the sacred anuses of fans and footballers will be exempt, unless they plan to settle down and get jobs as gardeners or drivers in the Gulf after the games are through..."

The idea that the bottom inspectors will be examining every man entering the Gulf states is a ludicrous fiction.

Update: Scott Long updates this story...

"The Kuwait Ministry of Health has proposed tightening genetic tests for immigrant workers in order to prevent transgender migrants from entering the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] job market."

The Guardian: Another Good Week For Gay Hysteria

WARNING: I WOULDN'T BOTHER READING THIS, IF I WERE YOU. IT'S FAGBURN BEING BORING ABOUT A RATHER BORING ARTICLE! BUT THAT'S KINDA THE POINT... *

Today the Guardian returns to the Russia/Pasta anti-gay Axis of Evil.
Thank you for fearlessly bringing these two subjects to our attention while so many others have been so silent.
In an online article Nancy Goldstein declares; It's Another Bad Week To Be Gay.
Why's that then, Nancy?
"There's been an unusually high volume of international bigotry and bad news to put up with this week."
Unusually high?
Cripes!
What's happened?
You probably haven't heard anything about this, but apparently the boss of some big Italian pasta company said he wants their TV ads to only feature straight families.
Fascist!
It gets worse.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has said they are "convinced that Russia will respect the Olympic charter, which prohibits discrimination of any kind".
Quislings!
And these demonstrate "an unusually high volume of international bigotry"??? [1]
Where on earth have you been?
Fagburn's surprised Nancy Goldstein didn't go for the hysterics' hat-trick and bring in the "offensive" (!) Inflatable Gay Best Friend, but I guess her story was filed too early to cover that great "outrage."
Frankly, I can think of many far worse weeks for us, but do go on...

Nancy: When not grinning she weeps for the world

She begins with that evil spaghetti monster, Guido Barilla, who said something about The Gays that both she and I disagree with.
How fucking dare he not agree with us?!
There has now been - inevitably - a call for a boycott of Barilla pasta, by people so infected with bourgeois consumerism they confuse (not) shopping with political action.
Welcome to the brave new world of gay "passive-activism"; if it makes you feel good, don't do it.
For the more dedicated LGBT inactivist there's an equally inevitable AllOut petition to get Barilla make an advert featuring a gay family." [2]
As ever, the promise of freedom is just a click away.
Should we now not buy anything that doesn't have a token fag in a TV ad?
How much do you feel your life has been diminished - and the forward march of gay liberation halted - by not seeing a gay dude in a stupid TV commercial today?
On a scale of one to fuck-all?
Do our collective queer dreams now aspire to nothing greater than being sold stuff by someone who looks a bit like us?
What a fortunate, wonderful life you must have had if you think this is what oppression looks like.
It's often stressed that Mr Barilla also said he doesn't agree with gay adoption - I wish he did, I wish everyone did, but they don't. [3]
Some people are bigots, get over it!
Again, should we boycott anything and everything made by a company where the CEO has daft outdated reactionary views we don't like?
I can't imagine finding much political common ground with many multi-millionaire company directors.
And how deluded and naive would someone have to be to get angry when they realise corporations aren't moral agents?
Or that their Capo di tutti capi isn't a saint?

Bit of a scoop here - Russia now hangs gay men

As there has been such an absolute avalanche of anti-gay hate this week, Goldstein swiftly moves onto the IOC statement.
Apparently; "Surpassing even Barilla's unique blend of homophobia and cynicism".
Which, seeing as the former was a relatively mild bad thing to say about The Gays, wouldn't be difficult.
She quotes the Olympic Charter, "Any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic movement".
Adding; "It also compels the IOC to "fight against" and "take action against" what the charter calls "discrimination of any kind" [4].
The IOC seem only to care about discrimination at the actual Olympic games or in sport [5], but could Goldstein give me one example of a host country - future or past - of the Olympic Games or Winter Olympics without "discrimination of any kind" or with a perfect record on human rights?
London 2012 - we didn't have equal marriage, for one boring thing.
Beijing 2008... err, need I go on?
Goldstein also seems blissfully unaware that the Olympic Charter also states;“No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.”( Section 50:3).
The new Russian law outlawing "gay propaganda" is thus rendered irrelevant by this.
Technically, you can't protest about anything anyway - even if it's something as banal as painting your toenails in the colours of the rainbow.
Remember Mexico 68?
She blames Sochi's commercial sponsors; Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Visa, Procter & Gamble...
Presumably if we ask them, or don't buy their junk, these nice big businesses will save us.
We're here, we're queer, and we're not going shopping for your useless crap unless you sponsor Alburquerque Pride! [6]

Why is The Guardian publishing this shit?

Goldstein knows there are other ways to protest, of course.
Strangely, her sole example is a protest at the Metropolitan Opera in New York this week.
The Met's great crime?

The bastards didn't dedicate a performance of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin to Russian LGBTs.
Don't they care???
Inside, an American man shouted at two Russian performers; "Your silence is killing Russian gays!"
What, literally?
This was cruelly ironic, as many US/UK campaigners never listen to what Russian LGBT campaigners say anyway.
eg All those Americans screaming for boycotts, when almost all Russian campaigners say they're pointless and counterproductive.
They are all but invisible, inaudible to the likes of Queer Nation NY and Goldstein. [7]
Because we in the west know what's best for the likes of them.
Orientalism redux!

Oh look! Some actual LGBT Russians campaigning!

There were two protests in Russia last week - far more important, meaningful, brave and inspiring than shouting in front of some wealthy Americans.

How much coverage did you see in the news?
There was some about a protest by Nikolai Alexseyev - partly because he always press releases the international media - photos of self attached (remind you of anyone?).

The protest in Moscow against homophobia in schools was completely ignored.
But then their aims were communicating with their fellow Russians, making connections with other struggles, and challenging the authorities - not the real heavy-lifting of getting their name and picture in the New York Times.
Goldstein does conclude by mourning the death of the Russian gay campaigner, Aleksei Davydov. [8]
I'm ashamed to say the name hadn't registered with me, probably because he was an unperson in the western media when he was alive.
Yet he is now brought back to life after death by those who have all of a sudden realised Russia does bad things to the gays.
The readers' comments after this article are - as ever - as depressing as fudge.
Backwards bastards! Boycott! Ban! Boo hoo! Squish squish! *sad face* etc.
But if someone has read and believed all the stories about Russia recently, you can't really blame them for unthinking they're building Belsen on the Volga.
Some people dared to ask why either of these two minor stories are thought so very important and so terrible in the general scheme of global gay misery that they warrant such space.
The endless, voluminous, shoddy coverage about gay life in Russia is sinister, and suggestive of another agenda.
The manufactured feigned outrage over Guido Barilla's unremarkable remarks and the silly, unfunny joke that is the Inflatable Gay Best Friend is ludicrous and embarrassing.
Both can only be seen by any rational person as little, localised outbreaks of mass hysteria.
Beware the pink pearl-clutchers and pitchfork-wavers.
Both are frightening phenomena the media should be exposing, not colluding in.
¡Ya basta!

THANKS IF YOU MADE IT TO THE END OF THIS. I DID WARN YOU IT WAS GOING TO BE BORING. BUT THE POINT IS THAT THE ARTICLE REFERRED TO IS POINTLESS. BUT THEY'LL PUBLISH ANYTHING IF IT CONFORMS TO AND FURTHER FEEDS THE CURRENT CLIMATE OF GAY HYSTERIA. FAGBURN HAS FOUND THIS WEEK SO "BAD" HE WILL NOW MAKE A GAY BEST FRIEND DOLL OUT OF BARILLA PASTA AND DEFECT TO RUSSIA. до свидания! ARRIVEDERCI! GOODBYE!

* I politely pointed some of these errors and inconsistencies on The Guardian messageboard - bizarrely a moderator removed them.
Whilst I'd like to say I had really kicked it to The Man, I fear this is what happens when bored interns moderate your forums.
See also 'G*y' on Tesco Direct...

Gay Star News: Tilda SWINDON! Who he?

1. Of course, sexing up a story is standard practice in the mass media. Try pitching an article saying things haven't changed much recently, and nothing really bad has actually happened. Best to make people believe the shock-horror hype.
2. I've been told you're more likely to see the ghost of Mussolini's mistress selling stuff in an Italian ad, than a gay man anyway.
3. She quotes without question professional hysteric, Michael Aravosis of the ever-so patriotic AMERICAblog, source of a translation of the interview, and also, curiously, of endless stories about LGBT Russia. Mike's faith in capital is so fanatical he thinks boycotts are the answer to all #teamgay's problems.
4. I can't find this in the - admittedly very long - charter. Nancy, can you let me know where it is? Ta.
5. South Africa was banned from the Olympics in 1964, not because of the apartheid system, but specifically because they refused to "renounce racial discrimination in sport and opposed the ban in its own country on competition between white and black athletes."
6. See this recent Slate feature by J Bryan Lowder on the gay movement's obsession with consumer boycotts - and corporate endorsements, Barilla Chairman Doesn't Like Gay People: So What?
7. Queer Nation NY is a new group who, tellingly, are making lots of noise/publicity about homophobia in Russia, but not about homophobia in New York.
8. Scott Long has written an obituary of Aleksei Davydov, who he knew, and worked with.
Tris Reid Smith has written movingly for Gay Star News about Davydov - "inspirational" "hero" etc.
Makes you wonder why he never mentioned him when he was alive? 
See also their header about this and Tilda Swindon above.

Edward Said: The Last Interview

Edward W. Said died ten years ago today.

"Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate."

Russia: Another Country

Today gay America is mightily pissed over this video.
RUSSIA BOO HISS!!! etc etc.
Can you believe it!?
Nobody knows who made it - or if it was actually made by Russians, anyone could have thrown this old cobblers together on a laptop in half-an-hour. 
Although only an idiot would see one crappy little homemade video as being representative of an entire nation, it is offered up as further evidence that Russia today is exactly like Nazi Germany/Apartheid South Africa (delete as hysterical) - comparisons that are as morally obscene as they are ludicrous - and uniquely evil in how it treats gay people.
But its "arguments" - that homosexuals are carriers of disease, die early, want to rape your kids (that's why they want to adopt them), and are taking over the nation etc etc - are exactly the same sort of nonsense that American rightwing and/or Christians regularly come up with (eg the charming booklet below).
Indeed, many of its "facts" are lifted straight from this American Christian tract.
And it acknowledges a laughable "study" by anti-gay Catholic loonbag, Mark Regnerus, who claimed one in three kids adopted by gay men were sexually abused - again an American.
Perhaps then the video tells us as much about the sickness in the American body politic?
Just as how the new "gay propaganda" law so closely echoing Britain's Section 28 says much about our own moral low ground.
Can't happen here...

The video was "newly discovered" - and posted on YouTube (purely coincidentally!) - by the rightwing self-styled "liberal" gay blogger, John Aravosis, who runs AMERICAblog. - their touching patriotic slogan: 'A Great Nation Deserves Equality'.
Aravosis - "I got involved in gay politics 20 years ago in order to win the right to serve in the military, have a job, and get married..." - is the source for many of the scare stories about Russia's anti-gay "pogrom", along with Radio Liberty, Radio Free Europe, and Voice Of America - all are rightwing propaganda media funded by the American state.
They are usually obediently repeated, unquestioned, unchecked - for in the current climate anyone can get away with writing any old bollocks about Russia.
The credulity of so many people to these media reports is thoroughly depressing, but sadly - as a cursory look through this blog shows - this is endemic to our culture.
I wouldn't be surprised to read in the gay media soon that; 'PUTIN EATS GAY BABIES!', with the usual caveats; "allegedley", "reportedly" etc.
Aravosis is so angry about what's happening right now he's started a subsite, Gay Russia.- a veritable mine of disinformation.
(The only other hot topic he thinks deserves its own subsite is "Putin's puppet" Syria).
Note how the two other loudest voices shouting about the plight of LGBT Russians are the far-right Zionist porn mogul, Michael Lucas, and the equally politically dodgy HomoCon/NeoCon, Jamie Kirchick, who famously hijacked a live TV debate about Chelsea Manning to rant about Russia while wearing rainbow "suspenders".
(Dan Savage who instigated the Boycott Sochi campaign - against a vodka that's not actually Russian - is seen as a "progressive" - but his last major foray into international politics was the "lefty" and liberal-bashing, 'Say YES To War On Iraq').
Seems the gay right are still living out their Cold War wet dreams.

Anti-gay propaganda from America the beautiful

The latter act - or rather self-publicity stunt - by James Kirchick is surely the neo-imperial mindset defined - where someone literally ignores the great crimes being committed by their own country, and fumes about those of its power rivals.
As is the tendency by westerners to think they know best about what to do, while ignoring what LGBT Russians are saying.
(Note also how often neo-colonialist Orientalist rhetoric appears that Russians are "backward", "uncivilised" etc - ah, the thankless western gay white man's burden). 
Witness what happens whenever someone on a messageboard points out LGBT Russian groups have asked people NOT to boycott.
Simply stating this obvious and important fact can get you compared to a holocaust denier.
An oft repeated post is some variation on "This is exactly how Hitler started!" - as preposterous and offensive as saying any discriminatory legislation is the first step on the road to Auschwitz, and as silly as saying drinking Earl Grey tea will inevitably lead to heroin addiction.
[Edit: It's just as common to be accused of supporting Putin or being a homophobe, if you challenge or correct an untruth here].
The debate has become so debased - and so many commentators are so indoctrinated, so oblivious to facts - it often seems pointless to enter into any discussion.

Yesterday, John McCain, the Republican party presidential candidate, slammed the Russian bogeyman in a widely-circulated op-ed.
He - but of course - highlighted how; "They write laws to codify bigotry against people whose sexual orientation they condemn."
This is somewhat odd, to say the least, as a senator McCain has always opposed any gay equality initiatives.
Ever get the feeling you're being used?
Perhaps it was a joke, and he was being ironic?
For he also wrote; "[Putin] is not enhancing Russia's global reputation. He is destroying it. He has made her a friend to tyrants and an enemy to the oppressed, and untrusted by nations that seek to build a safer, more peaceful and prosperous world."
Could any rational, intelligent, informed person hear an American politician saying any of that without risking dieing laughing?

Manufacturing Discontent

Sophisticated political satire.

It is heartening and moving that so many people in the west are angry about the oppression of gay people in Russia, and are expressing solidarity.
Though it often seems like an outbreak of whipped-up mass hysteria, akin to 1984's Hate Week, usually expressed in "passive activism"; actions that are pointless (clicktivism), and/or counterproductive (boycotts).
Or like a little outburst of over-emotional collective insanity much as that we witnessed when Princess Diana died.
All too often this does not look like some queer political re-awakening, but further proof of the depoliticisation of our culture.
But people can not be blamed for reaching for their pink pitchforks and torches when they've been subject to the sort of avalanche of media misinformation we normally only witness in wartime.
It is foolish and politically blind not to question why this has now become such an issue - warranting endless, blanket coverage, to the virtual exclusion of other countries' often far worse gay rights abuses - at a time when tensions between the US and Russia are at their most heightened since the Cold War.  
And it is obvious that the increasingly hysterical, hyperbolic and hypocritical "debate" has been hijacked, and is being used - meaning our struggle for gay rights is being used - as rightwing propaganda, by demonising a declared enemy in service to American hegemony.
USA! USA! USA!

Fagburn: Some Elementary Comments On Russia And Fighting Homophobia

As Vladimir Putin is an ultra-nationalist any condemnation of his policies from people in the West will almost certainly be counter-productive, and so shirley will make things worse for gay people in Russia.

That is all that is the case.

The West does not own Russia - and I'm sure they're bored of being told what to do by you by now.

All those who call for our glorious leader David Cameron to speak out are mere servants of power.

It is morally facile to say; "We must do something".

Sometimes to do nothing is the better course of action.

The Hippocratic oath begins; "First do no harm".

One never should "act" without thinking about its possible consequences.

Do you really think Putin gives a fuck if he can't see some queens figure-skating?

Could Section 28 have been stopped if Russian gayers stopped drinking Beefeater gin - or its Latvian equivalent? (Must research this).

Neo-Nazi thuggery in Russia has a long history - calls by gay men to boycott or protest the Olympics only risks these sick fucks dying of laughter.

To suggest a "state-funded" TV presenter's stupid and offensive remarks are somehow emblematic of Russia is as stupid and offensive as saying the BBC's "state-funded" TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson represents Britain.

To highlight homophobia in Russia is hypocritical; the new Russian law about "propaganda" is based on our own Section 28 - ask why are so many Tory MPs queuing up to denounce it?

Relatively - internationally - speaking Russia's "clampdown on gays" is quite mild - so why are we picking on Russia?

Homosexuality is not illegal in Russia, it is in 70 other countries - sadly these are ignored, presumably as many of them are our obedient colonies, and not our old Cold War enemies.

For the UK or US to lecture a country about "human rights abuses" is beyond a joke.

Or maybe we should send a few gay-friendly drones to Moscow?

And yet Stephen Fry says our country is "civilised"...

Dear Stephen, Russia has not knowingly bombed, invaded or occupied Serbia, Afghanistan or Iraq. [Edit: It has been pointed out that Russia did rather obviously "intervene" in Afghanistan. I apologise for this monumental act of fuckwittery. What a schmuck I am].

Bradley Manning?

Why has there been a vomitorium of articles about Russia in the gay and straight media recently? Like that's the only bad thing that's happening in the world right now.

From Bosnia to Iran, Peter Tatchell has continually been shown to tell lies in service of empire.

Gay men are still being arrested in the US under "sodomy laws".

US military - 1.4million.

US prison population - 2.4million.

Shall we boycott AmeriKKKa?

We must ask our LGBT comrades in Russia what to do - they overwhelmingly do not support an Olympics ban or silly vodka boycott/PR stunts.

The "campaign" about Russian homophobia can only - rationally - be seen as an outbreak of mass hysteria - of collective insanity - akin to people buying Elton John's Candle In The Wind after Princess Diana died, or the do-nothingness "inspired" by the Kony 2012 video.

This is not a political act, but a sign of the wholescale depoliticisation of our culture.

That some are advancing the idea that a boycott of the 1936 Berlin Olympics could have stopped Hitler's Holocaust shows the sheer moronification of this "debate".

Any comparisons between what is happening in Russia today and Nazi Germany or apartheid South Africa are disgusting insults to all who suffered and died under them.

Let's face it, no-one actually gives a figure-skating fuck about the Winter Olympics.

No-one with an IQ higher than a fence-post cares what Lady Gaga or that buffoon who was in Star Trek 50 years ago "thinks" about anything.

Do not think celebrities like Fry or Gaga are some kind of moral compass - think for yourself.

Question anything that has become a cause celebs.

In a culture so debased that fame equals power, oppose fame and power.

Admittedly, complaining about celebrities making inane ill-informed comments about politics is like complaining about the rain - it happens.

The only point of Stephen Fry is he shows the arrogance that comes with privilege and a public school education.

That some people think clicking an e-petition will change anything kinda explains why the world is still fucked to buggery.

Ask why this issue is so animating the gay right and the apolitical.

Fagburn believes this thoroughly depressing partisan fools' crusade - although clearly often well-meaning - is nothing more than proof of the success of right-wing hegemony, and a service to state power.

Oh, and Orientalism and that blah blah blah...

“Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate" - Edward W Said.

In conclusion: If you really want to help gay people in Russia - please shut the fucking fuck up.

Fagburn: On Gay Orientalism

Old dreams of empire fade so slow

Oh Russia

Africa

Arabia, Iran

Afghanistan

When will you learn

we must own you?

"The foreigners are at it again
when will they learn to fight like our men?"*

 

We know what's best

The West is the best
To boycott or to bomb?

Fuck you.

Some neo-colonialist balls about The Gays in The Guardian.
Some neo-colonialist balls about The Gays on Queerty.
Other recent examples of gay Orientalism too numerous to list...

“Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate."

Edward W Said.

* Robert Wyatt.

PS We live in age of "We must do something" hysteria.
Usually involving doing as little as possible.
We ignore the voices of LGBT activists in other countries that our actions may only make things worse there, as their politicians love grandstanding that they are resisting Western interventions.
Remember the Hippocratic oath; "First, do no harm."

Update: New Amnesty International release on human rights abuses in Western Europe and the US.

World: Activism As Imperialism

The Folly Of International Gay Activism

So why are Iraqis, Sub-Saharans and Russians so homophobic? If only it were that easy to demonize cultures that we don’t really understand. The second (and more important) common factor among these people is their desire to be free of us. Anti-LGBT violence in these countries is usually related to increasing religious conservatism among their leadership, which is itself a response to increased pressure by the United States for them to conform to our beliefs. A severe lack of respect by the U.S. government, combined with a cultural arrogance about our “superior” way of life, makes negotiations with these countries difficult because they view our presence as a threat to their cultural uniqueness...

Supporting the global fight for LGBT rights is neither simple nor short-term. When Western governments bring their self-aggrandizing views into the discussion, they alienate their allies and hurt those allies’ LGBT constituents. An effective strategy to protect sexual and gender minorities around the world is one written in terms that the locals can understand. It must reflect local values and respect local beliefs. Without such compassion, homophobia and Americaphobia will continue to grow.

Richard Furstein, The Triangle.

Update: Posh gayist Hugo Rifkind defends neo-colonial homophile attitudes in The Times. Apparently Section 28 could have been defeated if we had Twitter back then! A quite remarkably silly piece.

Richard Littlejohn: Gay Times

Nice ad for Gay Times here (even though it's not called that anymore).
Courtesy of Richard Littlejohn's column in the Daily Mail.

Call Me Dave has announced he's on a mission to export gay marriage around the world. Why? At a Downing Street reception to celebrate the passage of the Bill legalising same-sex weddings, he said Britain is 'the best place to be gay, lesbian or transgender anywhere in Europe'.
"Well, hooray for that. Now can we change the subject?"
Apparently not. Rather than dismantle the team that piloted the Bill through Parliament, the Prime Minister plans to send them on some kind of global outreach expedition to spread the word in less enlightened countries.
'There's still a lot more work to be done talking to our Commonwealth partners about decriminalising homosexuality.'
I have visions of civil servants in pink pith helmets combing remote regions of Africa in search of converts, rather like the missionaries who brought Christianity to the savages in the 19th century.
Smiling children flock round rainbow-painted Land Rovers while representatives of HMG distribute souvenir copies of Gay Times and autographed photos of Clare Balding...
etc etc.

Stunningly, the general gist of Littlejohn's argument about how this shows a patronising neo-colonialist Orientalist attitude to "unenlightened" countries is correct.
Obviously he doesn't use the phrase "neo-colonialist Orientalist attitude".
But then he goes and spoils it all by saying something stupid about cutting foreign aid.
An argument often advanced by neo-colonialist Orientalist gay campaigners and journalists, coincidentally.

The Guardian: It's Time To Face Up To The Problem Of Sexual Abuse In The White Community

Every day across Britain, it seems, there's a new and horrific revelation of sexual abuse: last week we had the guilty plea of veteran TV presenter Stuart Hall, who confessed to 14 cases of indecent assault against 13 girls, the youngest only nine years old.
Days earlier the possible scale of child abuse in north Wales children's homes was revealed. We now know there were 140 allegations of historical abuse between 1963 and 1992. A total of 84 suspected offenders have been named, and it's claimed the abuse took place across 18 children's homes.
But after the shock has subsided and we have time to reflect on these revolting crimes, the main question in most reasonable people's minds must surely be: what is it about white people that makes them do this?

Joseph Harker in The Guardian.

A puckish satire on contemporary mores, media hysteria, moral panic, racism, Islamophobia, and Orientalism.
"Imagine if they said that about gay people!" etc etc.
Or straight people.
Here's a textbook example of what Harker's satirising by Julie Bindel in the Sunday Times.
Or you may want to read Johann Hari argue, "Yes, it is “Muslim culture” today to be bigoted against gay people" in 'Can we talk about Muslim homophobia now?
Or you could read Lenin's Tomb's response, Can we finally talk about Johann Hari's Muslim problem?
Odd how Hari thinks he's saying something unsayable with this claptrap, when you don't have to look too hard to find other gay journalists saying it. 
"A herd of independent minds", indeed. 

Saudi Arabia: Too Good Looking To Be True

You have most probably heard by now that three Emirati men were allegedly thrown out of a cultural Janadriyah Festival by the Saudi religious police (pl. mutawaeen) for “being too handsome.” Most reports, however, have claimed the three men were actually deported from the Kingdom, itself, for their ‘seductive' lure that was apparently going to send the attending women into an incontrollable hormonal flux. Fementertainment blog, Jezebel, was amongst the first to reveal the identity of one of the alleged Emirati men, Omar Borkan Al Gala – a photographer, model, actor and poet. The internet went into self-fanning mode as several images of the young man went viral and thousands clamored to follow him on social media websites.
Unfortunately, no one in the English press bothered to actually fact check the story.
As it turns out, three men were not, in fact, deported from Saudi Arabia. Actually, no one was deported from Saudi Arabia and certainly not for being too handsome. And, actually, no one was even kicked out of the heritage and cultural festival except for a member of the religious police for protesting against the presence of a Gulf female singer...

Islawmix.

The author notes; "Saudi Arabia often makes US (and international) headlines for its laws (legal mishaps?) regarding women, sex and religious minorities. Some of these stories undoubtedly belong there, but a surprising number gain traction thanks to a small amount of research and suspension of critical engagement. It seems that when it comes to Saudi Arabia (and sometimes her theocratic counterpart Iran, albeit less so),  the more bizarre the story may seem – in that way only the Saudi Arabia of our perception could normalize – the more believable it is."

Sound familiar? 
Basically you can write any old Orientalist bollocks about these "funny" foreign countries and - usually - get away with it.
And in Fagburn's experience it seems done far more so about America's Officially Declared Enemy, Iran - false and/or unverified accusations of homophobic acts seem strangely popular.

PS Here's how The Independent covered the story above; Behold Omar! The Man Who Was Just Too Handsome.
Modesty forbids me from drawing your attention to the first reader comment asking if they'd bothered to check it. 

Somalia: Here We Go Again?

Reports by an LGBT activist group in Africa that a gay Somalian teenager was stoned to death last week as a punishment for the crime of homosexuality, and widely reported by LGBT bloggers on Wednesday, may prove to be false.
The group Somali Gay Community claimed, in a series of posts on their Facebook page, that 18-year-old Mohamed Ali Baashi was buried in a hole up to his chest and then stoned to death by members of the Al Qaeda-linked group Al Shabaab on March 15, in Barawe, about 50 miles from the Somalian capital city, Mogadishu.
The Somalia group alleged the young man was accused of sodomy, and that horrified villagers were forced to watch. The story was accompanied by several, graphic photos that the group claimed were of the stoning.
The story was reported Monday by Identity Kenya, another LGBT activist group in the region, and the unconfirmed report was widely distributed by LGBT websites, including the Advocate, Gay Star News, Queerty, Towleroad and Joe My God. **
But during a routine verification of the group’s claim, LGBTQ Nation discovered that all of the photographs purported to be of the stoning, were copied from unrelated incidents dating as far back as 2008, and were taken from stories previously reported by Associated Press, Reuters and Al Jazerra...

LGBTQNation.

This story is still evolving at the time of typing.*
But stories like this about the stoning always have to be approached with extreme caution, they're almost impossible to verify from a desk in London or New York.
Such horror stories about scary homophobic, foreign "backward" "savages" often turn out to have been exaggerated, misreported, misconstrued,  or just plain made-up; for reasons of propaganda, and/or because they fit an Orientalist and/or Islamophobic/racist mindset, or just plain bad journalism.
But if the photos are from other events - one was published by the Daily Mail in 2009 - the essence of this story may still be true.
Right now, we simply don't know either way.
Also it's worth noting that the original sources said the supposed charge was sexual assault/rape of a 13 year-old boy.
Yet several gay media managed to turn this into "for the crime of homosexuality", or for "being gay".
Eh?

* Update: A report by Associated Press today apparently filed from Mogadishu, gives it some credence - though it would be foolish to think AP are incapable of getting something wrong.

** Several have since been updated or removed from their websites. The illustrations come from Queerty's coverage yesterday and today.

Noam Chomsky: First, Do No Harm

In the case of South Africa, for example, in which I was involved in the boycotts, they were highly selective and they were selected in a way which would lead to help for the victims, not to make us feel good, help for the victims. The same in the case of the Vietnam war, where I was involved, and I was imprisoned many times, I was involved in civil disobedience, organizing resistance and so on.
But we always had to ask ourselves, when we pick a certain tactic, what does it mean for the Vietnamese, not what does it mean for us? And sometimes there are things you should do and sometimes there are things you shouldn’t do, and in fact they were very helpful in that regard...

In the case of any tactic, you ask yourself, what are its consequences, ultimately for the victims, and indirectly for the audience you are trying to reach... That’s the question you ask when you carry out any tactic, whether it is disobedience, breaking bank windows, demonstrations, whatever it is. Those are the questions you ask if you care about the victims, if you don’t care about the victims, you won’t bother with these questions and you just do what makes you feel good...

Noam Chomsky interviewed by Electronic Intifada on an academic boycott of Israel.

What he says also rings true about much Western gay campaigning on issues in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
It's usually "We must do something!" solipsistic, patronising, Orientalist, feel-good a/politics, with no thought about the consequences - which are often negative - for the people they're supposedly trying to help.
See All Out, Kaleidoscope Trust, Saint Tatchell et al.

PS The phrase "First, do no harm", often quoted by Uncle Noam, comes from the Hippocratic oath. 

Downton Abbey: The Greek Position

Greek state television came under fire from the country's main opposition party and critics for editing out a gay kiss on Monday's primetime premiere of popular British period drama Downton Abbey.

Greeks took to social networking sites such as Twitter to complain about the NET channel's decision to axe a scene from episode one of the first series showing a kiss between a visiting duke and Downton's unscrupulous footman Thomas. NET defended its move, citing parental guidance viewing rules.
"As incredible as it may seem for a democratic country in the 21st century, officials of the NET television channel censored the scene of a kiss between men from the TV drama Downton Abbey," the SYRIZA party said in a statement.
"This is of course an obvious case of censorship, an extreme act of homophobia and discrimination which unfortunately, after what has been happening recently, we cannot characterize as unprecedented."

The Independent.
Several papers ran with this - most just recycling a Reuters story.
It's of obvious interest to gay media, but why is it of interest to UK newspapers, especially when like The Independent they ignore so many gay news stories that really matter to their readers?
I think the subtext is an Orientalist one - "Those funny, unsophisticated foreigners, tsk!"
It seems the kiss was only cut from a pre-watershed transmission, then re-installed.
Not the sort of thing we worry about in dear old Blighty, of course. 
Hell no!

PS This all reminded Fagburn of a line from Boy George after Culture Club played a festival in Athens and got pelted and booed off; "Homosexuality?!! The Greeks bloody invented it!"

Deborah Orr: Against Orientalism

Many of the Islamic values the west finds so reprehensible were our own settled values too, until embarrassingly recently. Islamic homophobia? Not acceptable.
Yet gay people in Britain only achieved the same rights to legal sex as heterosexuals in 2001. Islamic inequality in its treatment of men and women? Don't start me. Yet I remember a time when two women walking into a pub together was like two pheasants wandering on to a shooting range.
Barbarous Islamic punishment? We hanged our last murderers in 1964. Some Islamist groups' yearnings for world domination? Britain parcelled out the land of another people like it was the family allotment, as recently as 1948...

A brilliant piece by Deborah Orr in The Guardian. 
Thank you - shame it's so rare to read such sense.