The portrayal of Islam in a certain light is essential to the success of neoliberal practices in the region. In line with this, Israel’s official 2007 campaign, “Brand Israel,” saw millions of dollars spent for this propaganda. One of the central points is “pink-washing” where Israel portrays itself as a haven for homosexuals while deliberately glossing over its occupation of Palestine. […] This phenomenon of employing gay rights as political strategy, and in this case anchored in Islamophobia, is termed by theorist Jasbir Puar as “homonationalism.” Gender is clearly an organising principle of Israeli re-pression and what needs to be looked at is whether gender is also an organising principle of Palestinian resistance. The Palestinian queer movement is deeply em-bedded in anti-pinkwashing activism and differentiates itself from Western notions of queerness.
Historically speaking, settler colonialism has a long history of articulating its violence through the protection of certain figures such as women and children (Moghadam, 1994), and now homosexuals. Pinkwashing is just one more justification for imperial violence within this long tradition which works in part by tapping into the discursive and structural circuits produced by the West against the danger of “Islamic extremism.” In persistence of this imperial tradition, Gayatri Spivak’s (2010) well-known precept “white men saving brown women from brown men” (p. 57) gets modified with the trope of white homosexuals saving brown homosexuals from brown heterosexuals (Morris, 2010). Further, the neoliberal economic structure comfortably stretches itself to induce a compartmentalised sort of marketing of various ethnic and minoritised groups (Fraser, 2013). Thus it normalises the production of, for example, a gay and lesbian tourism industry built on the distinction between “gay-friendly” and homophobic destinations. The human rights groups voicing homosexual concerns continue to proliferate Western constructs of identity that privilege identity politics, “coming out”, increased visibility, and legislative measures as the dominant scales of social inclusion and progress.
The gay movement operated in the same context as […] other progressive struggles. Chief among the contradictions within the gay movement, as in other groups, was the predominance of petty-bourgeois elements. The communist forces in the gay movement were also small in number and still primitive, and got very little support for their work from other communists. Many gay communists saw anti-war work and the working class movement as more important; gay women communists saw the women’s movement as a higher priority than the gay movement. As a practical result, the gay movement was abandoned by communists to the leadership of the petty-bourgeoisie to where it is now dominated, on the one hand, by a few opportunists and reformists, […] who are bought off by government and foundation grants. […] The fact that anti-gay communists take the most conspicuous gay people for the whole points again to their one-sided, superficial and subjective approach.
Just as men, women, heterosexuals, gays and minorities cross all class lines, any organization of these groups will reflect one or another class line at any given historical period depending on the strength and development of the different class forces. Gays are not inherently revolutionary (as some gay groups would say), nor inherently reactionary (as some “communist” groups would say). The class nature of gay liberation will change only when it is given revolutionary working class leadership. Until then, like all other groups, bourgeois ideology will fill the political vacuum. Even the working class, left to itself, can only develop trade union consciousness, which in the last analysis is bourgeois. To expect the gay movement to be any different when left without proletarian leadership is pure idealism. Gay people, particularly working class gays, are perfectly capable of enthusiastically grasping the science of Marxism Leninism and of being disciplined revolutionary fighters. To make enemies of potential allies is to abandon the working class and its interests.
Might also want to look into the use of NGOs and how they are used to infiltrate and destabilize anti-imperialist countries, LGBT rights being one of the wedge issues they use for this, which is one of the reasons that in AES countries today there is strict control over NGOs (which gets portrayed in the west as institutional homophobia/transphobia). Pinkwashing wrt Palestine has a lot of writing on it as well, although pinkwashing can be found many other places as well. The quotes and sources listed above are in this ProleWiki article about LGBT issues in AES countries. Somewhere I also once saw an article about the history of the development of anti-LGBT laws in colonized countries, comparing differences by who they were colonized, what laws were instituted, what modern attitude toward LGBT arose from it, and relating it all to the original local culture and laws of each place (which may become re-interpreted by the locals themselves due to the colonization period). If you think that might help your writing project I will try to find it again.
I think it’s relevant just because LGBT people in the West are often shown examples of homo/transphobia in anti-imperialist countries that strikes fear into them or at least allows them to completely write off caring about those countries, I think the pinkwashing article explains this phenomenon well.
Wow. Thank you. There isnt much more I could say on the subject that hasnt been said here other than the fact that it has become extremely obvious lately.
I dont keep up on theory like this as much as others. But perhaps it says something when a casual ML starts noticing deeper trends. As in; it seems like several forces are putting in more and more work on this subject as of late to the point that even for an amature ML thinker like myself are taking notice of the game at play here.
It is refreshing to see that im not crazy and that certain " communist" rhetoric started coming off as strangely suspicious to me when it comes to the queer question.
Haha thanks. Perhaps in the future I will make a post about it if I do more research into it. Most of what I would say currently can be found in that ProleWiki article. But yes I will keep it in mind as something to write about if I gain more knowledge on the topic.
I want to recommend some reading that may help you in your project if you choose to write on this, I will give links and excerpts.
Anti-Pinkwashing as Emerging Hope: Queering the Palestinian Liberation Movement in the Context of Institutionalised Neoliberalism by Sukrita Lahiri
Toward A Scientific Analysis of the Gay Question by the Los Angeles Research Group
Might also want to look into the use of NGOs and how they are used to infiltrate and destabilize anti-imperialist countries, LGBT rights being one of the wedge issues they use for this, which is one of the reasons that in AES countries today there is strict control over NGOs (which gets portrayed in the west as institutional homophobia/transphobia). Pinkwashing wrt Palestine has a lot of writing on it as well, although pinkwashing can be found many other places as well. The quotes and sources listed above are in this ProleWiki article about LGBT issues in AES countries. Somewhere I also once saw an article about the history of the development of anti-LGBT laws in colonized countries, comparing differences by who they were colonized, what laws were instituted, what modern attitude toward LGBT arose from it, and relating it all to the original local culture and laws of each place (which may become re-interpreted by the locals themselves due to the colonization period). If you think that might help your writing project I will try to find it again.
I think it’s relevant just because LGBT people in the West are often shown examples of homo/transphobia in anti-imperialist countries that strikes fear into them or at least allows them to completely write off caring about those countries, I think the pinkwashing article explains this phenomenon well.
Wow. Thank you. There isnt much more I could say on the subject that hasnt been said here other than the fact that it has become extremely obvious lately.
I dont keep up on theory like this as much as others. But perhaps it says something when a casual ML starts noticing deeper trends. As in; it seems like several forces are putting in more and more work on this subject as of late to the point that even for an amature ML thinker like myself are taking notice of the game at play here.
It is refreshing to see that im not crazy and that certain " communist" rhetoric started coming off as strangely suspicious to me when it comes to the queer question.
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Haha thanks. Perhaps in the future I will make a post about it if I do more research into it. Most of what I would say currently can be found in that ProleWiki article. But yes I will keep it in mind as something to write about if I gain more knowledge on the topic.