I was debating whether to insert this within LGBT+ or Islamic Leftism but I do think ultimately it might fit here better because it covers the specific experience of French indigènes, which makes it more relevant here.
I feel like in these sort of online Islamic “progressive” spaces, there’s no genuine discussions happening. These spaces are often almost defensive in nature - like the existence of this community is just to prove to disapproving whites that Islam isn’t this, or isn’t that. This is a result of being in a Western dominated space in general.
Gender and sexual minorities is a very important phenomenon that must require a response, yet it is almost ignored or never spoken about because this muslim-homophobia dichotomy is so engrained that people are (rightfully) scared to even talk about it, especially across the White left.
I’d of course invite everyone to treat this article critically, and contribute if you have any qualms against their conclusions, although I will admit my opinions have slowly drifted closer to the article as the years went by.
“The goal is therefore to convince non-Whites that they must identify as homosexual. This is the choice offered by hegemonic homosexual activism”
Source: “I pulled it out of my ass.” This is literally the fascist claim that the LGBT are forcing everyone and particularly children to be gay.
“In this respect, it is interesting to see how the defenders of a “universal” homosexual identity impose the frame of analysis at the heart of their campaigns to « save » the homos in working-class neighbourhoods.”
“An association that houses victims of homophobia” – says that there are not “fewer homos” in these neighbourhoods but that they are “more hidden and in denial.”
Why is this said like this is absurd or a bad thing??? That is objectively true, and the author acts like it’s some secretive plot to destroy the immigrant community by turning them all gay. And not that there are, you know, LGBT people already there, but terrified to come out because of the reaction they would garner. Like from this person for example, who would claim that them being gay is a “capitulation to white imperialism”.
“I am part of this “productive regression” since I am resolutely on their side of the racial divide. That’s why I will reject categorically any attempt to place Civitas and the Union of Islamic Organizations of France [UOIF]”
Oh no no no, you don’t get to eat your cake and have it too. There’s a reason those two organizations coincidentally appear on the same side when it comes to traditionalist and anti-LGBT action/rhetoric. You can’t just say offhandedly that it’s not what it looks like and that’s it’s actually ok when we do it because insert post hoc justifications for homophobia.
What a disgusting and reactionary conclusion. The author makes several interesting and good points in the beginning, then they do a heel turn and devolve rapidly into absurd levels of homophobia, which they try to justify as being “anti-imperialist”. They go completely mask off when talking about how they will sacrifice their allies on the left to defend their stance, then make it seem like modern homosexuality is an entirely white phenomenon, completely ignoring other Muslims who are LGBT.
I am extremely alarmed at your addition too, “although I will admit my opinions have slowly drifted closer to the article as the years went by”.
This is a bit long, but I wanted to genuinely defend why I thought the article was worth sharing in the first place.
I honestly don’t know how you interpreted the article that way.
This is literally the fascist claim that the LGBT are forcing everyone and particularly children to be gay.
Why is this said like this is absurd or a bad thing??? That is objectively true, and the author acts like it’s some secretive plot to destroy the immigrant community by turning them all gay.
I admit it could be clearer, and may just be the fault of translation, but they didn’t try implying that if read in full context:
That’s also why the working-class neighbourhoods respond to homoracialism with indentitarian masculinism and … ever more homophobia. As ugly as those reactions seem, they have a common motivator: ardent resistance to white Western imperialism and a stubborn desire to preserve a real or imagined identity about which there is broad consensus. For whether we identify as homo or not, whether we engage in homo-erotic practices or not, to be a colonial subject means that you are always defined against the “model immigrant.” When it comes “homosexuality” in working-class neighbourhoods we must avoid the impasse of demanding assimilation into Western sexual democracy and the attendant reaction of various actors to this call. In this respect, it is interesting to see how the defenders of a “universal” homosexual identity impose the frame of analysis at the heart of their campaigns to « save » the homos in working-class neighbourhoods. In an article that virulently denounced what I said on the TV program discussed above, Johan Cadirot – head of the Refuge, “an association that houses victims of homophobia” – says that there are not “fewer homos” in these neighbourhoods but that they are “more hidden and in denial.”7
The goal is therefore to convince non-Whites that they must identify as homosexual. This is the choice offered by hegemonic homosexual activism: pride or shame, coming out or the closet. This is not to question the sincerity of people who come to the aid of the persecuted or harmed. But hell is paved with good intentions. In this discourse, any resistance to LGBT identities is seen as an effort to hide or closet, if not as latent or explicit homophobia. How can this assimilation of sexualities – hetero or homo, hidden or visible – be justified?
With the paragraphs in mind, the start of the 2nd paragraph is clearly referring to the people mentioned beforehand, those that did sought refuge in the shelters, aka gay people. So it wasn’t fearmongering about converting all non-Whites to homosexuality.
The key part of the entire 2 paragraphs is the dichotomy between “hidden and in denial” versus “visible and proud” - do homosexual indigènes not have any minds of their own to negotiate with the fact that they live in a homophobic community?
This is what they mean by the entirety of that 2nd paragraph. Why are those the only 2 options given for homosexual indigènes? Why must they either be out and proud or in the closet? Both implictly implying that they are the victims and not agents that act upon a given condition.
Which is why later on the author says:
Homosexual indigènes confronted with this dilemma therefore face three possibilities11 : distancing themselves, geographically or otherwise, from family and community when they have the means to do so (which is rare), submitting to heterosexual marriage and therefore to significant emotional precarity, or marrying a homosexual of the opposite sex to keep up appearances. What links these three strategies is the preservation of the family and community order and the impossibility of coming out. Homosexual identity and its related political demands? Certainly possible for a small number (at what cost?), but a dead end for many.
There is a material cost to the 3 dilemmas she mentioned, but also to coming out, to claiming a politicised identity, which also incur a lot emotional costs too, of course. But not only to the individual. It will affect the entire family and community. It would destabilize the entire social fabric of indigènes communities.
So If I say that the homosexual political identity is not universal it is also perhaps in order to better protect the [homosexual] practice, to protect freedoms but also lives.
Not because gay people are destructive - but it would upset the social reproduction of these communities, which would mean the total subjugation of the indigènes to the oppressors. And for many, that is not worth the cost, so:
Their experience within racialized communities convinces them of the necessity of such a negotiation in order to avoid any kind of complicity with white imperialism. They know that white imperialism can only weaken the already-compromised social body of the indigènes and work to dismantle the family, which has become, for the indigènes, the ultimate refuge… Heterosexual marriage is therefore the only possible horizon … to the extent that the Western family, as defended by Civitas and the right of the political spectrum, remains a desirable horizon for non-Whites in France… The decline of the social state reinforces communitarian and family solidarity … Our families are torn between rising unemployment, women’s domestic employment in white families, workplace discrimination suffered by both men and women, and educational underachievement. Under these conditions, how not reinvest in the family; what other option is there ?
So when you say,
Oh no no no, you don’t get to eat your cake and have it too. There’s a reason those two organizations coincidentally appear on the same side when it comes to traditionalist and anti-LGBT action/rhetoric. You can’t just say offhandedly that it’s not what it looks like and that’s it’s actually ok when we do it because insert post hoc justifications for homophobia.
It isn’t a post hoc justification, it is literally how homophobia is reproduced in capitalism. Homophobia is reproduced through the institutions of the heterosexual family, in which for the case of the indigènes, is what the author argues is the last line of defense from racialised society.
To use the famous chapter by D’Emilio,
lesbian and gay identity and communities are historically created, the result of a process of capitalist development that has spanned many generations. A corollary of this argument is that we are not a fixed social minority composed for all time of a certain percentage of the population. There are more of us than one hundred years ago, more of us than forty years ago.
and
Our survival and liberation depend on our ability to defend and expand that terrain, not just for ourselves but for everyone. That means, in part, support for issues that broaden the opportunities for living outside traditional heterosexual family units…
The essence of this “racialised” homophobia is entirely different. I can’t say specifically about the organisations she mentions - as I am entirely clueless about French politics - but the case she makes is clear: this apparent homophobia is a form of decolonial resistance of an oppressed group against the imperialists.
It is nothing like the “traditionalism” of the White Right, a reaction to losing privileges due to the decay of capitalism.
Just like Northern labour aristocrats, we must then push back on this idea that somehow these labour aristocrats were victims of propaganda and in turn that somehow the reluctance for some minority groups, especially muslim ones, to neither fully accept nor reject “marriage for all” and a gay political identity, is due to fully internalized Homophobia, rather than a form of resistance having lived in precarity under White imperialism.
Which is why in the end the author reckons
for a political strategy that allows a convergence against the main enemy, even as some are fighting for progress and individual emancipation while others resist this. And this requires, above all, the identification of the enemy. Is it imperialist, capitalist, bourgeois and racist power? Or is it the bearded and veiled “sexist” “reactionaries” for some and the progressive, feminist pro-homo rights for others?
What is the primary contradiction?
On your “you don’t get to eat your cake and have it too” comment, I can say the same to you. The fact of the matter is, Gay Imperialism exists. It isn’t a simple “co-opting”, if that was the case, I guess European social democracies were just “co-opting” communist policies during the cold war as well. There are larger dynamics at play and we should stop the “pathological or paternalistic relationship with homosexuality”.
Which is why in the end they reckon that
In fact, respect for indigenous time – putting an end to commandments and interference in the affairs of the indigènes – […] In the longer term, [will hopefully lead to] the easing of the two constraints – the one that forces people to identify as homosexual and the one that enforces a rigid heterosexuality – will allow non-white people to find a balance between their public and private lives, their relationships and their family solidarities.
Is this not what we should strive for? The removal of the conditions that forces indigène communities to rely on hetero-patriachal families, which critically needs to be carried out by the indigène themselves.
This will eventually remove the material basis for homophobia.
I dunno about the parts regarding French politics but I think the point they’re trying to make is that our ideas about sexuality do not apply to every culture. And that foreign attempts to “liberate gay people” are often as misguided as historic attempts to “civilize the natives”.
Like, consider what it means to “be gay”. First, you need to think about gender such that everyone has it, and has only 1 kind. Then you need to make distinctions between attraction towards different genders. Then you need to draw discrete lines between those categories. And where are those lines? Is it about kissing? Or just having thoughts? Or having sex? Is dating enough? If it is then what qualifies as dating?
Different cultures have wildly different frameworks for all of this and what they’re saying is that in order to save “gay people” you need to create “gay people” as a concept. And that we should be very careful with how we approach social issues because we can provoke a negative backlash when we impose ourselves.
I think we should be mindful of how our beliefs about gender and sexuality are informed by our history and that people with different histories think differently.
Being LGBT is not a medical condition with rigorous diagnostics, symptoms, and tests. It is a fully defined concept and the only prerequisite is that you identify with the orientation of the label you take on.
No one is doing verification about where you draw the line. The definition for gay for example is simply attraction to the same gender. That’s it. But it’s not “ having thoughts” or “kissing”, or anything like that. You are LGBT when you say you’re LGBT, that’s it. No one gets to decide that for you, and only you get to decide what line is enough for you. There is no need to create a bizarre and Byzantine “verification” system. There is no ultra-rigid definition for orientation.
Also what do you mean by “gay people as a concept”. That’s extremely obvious, also looking into this organization, they do outreach and assist those that come to them first for safety due to homophobia. They aren’t white knighting and “saving gay people”, they are protecting lgbt individuals whose lives are in danger, have been kicked out and made homeless, and have nowhere to go due to the response to their orientation.
That said response is coming from people much like the author of the article, who view those lgbt individuals as artificial constructs of imperialism that are gay because they’re appealing to the white western masses and “indoctrination”, and not because they are… you know… LGBT.
The author even has the quote “They are creatures of God so we must respect them and not do violence to them (even if religion disapproves of homosexuality)”
And with that last line they expose the entire issue behind their argument. Yes, they might believe the first line of that quote, but other people will not, and because of that religious disapproval they resort to reactionary and homophobic action and thought. Which only works to play into the Rights hands. Which is why the author is forced to desperately make the distinction that their homophobia is in fact different and justified unlike that from the fascist catholic traditionalist Civitas movement, even though they share the exact same opinion and beliefs regarding the LGBT, in that they are against their religion.
I know being queer isn’t a disease lol. I am queer. The point I was trying to make is that our beliefs about gender and sexuality are informed by our particular culture and they do not necessarily carry over to other cultures.
You say it’s obvious what gay people are, but is it really? The word “homosexual” is only about 100 years old yet you speak about it as if it were an innate characteristic of humanity. And I don’t mean that in a “people only started experiencing same-sex attraction recently” kind of way. I mean that the way we understand human sexuality is invented. And that the words westerners came up with don’t translate well to other cultures.
Also, the paragraph following that quote clarifies the author’s position. Which is that we should allow for and encourage colonized peoples to develop their own societies and create their own norms regarding sexuality in their own time. And let them define and redefine their own language because the heterosexual/homosexual binary was imposed on them by westerners, which is why they often reject movements by them even when they’re arguably good.
Btw when I mentioned saving gay people, I was thinking about libs who want to go to war against this or that country because their people are deemed homophobic. I wasn’t referring to this org in specific.
Oh, I didn’t mean that as in “queer is a disease”, but moreso it doesn’t have some detailed diagnostic criteria, like a condition or disease would. Sorry if I wasn’t clear.
But yes, it is very obvious what gay people are this is a thing that people have identified and defined clearly, it is not some abstract philosophical concept, and it is absolutely an innate characteristic of humanity. As even the author states how homosexuality has been present in human society for all of recorded history, and even further with archeological evidence.
Also if they still doesn’t answer to why the author believes that the west is forcing migrants to be gay, or why that’s phrased as a bad thing (no matter how absurd it is).
Lastly, religion and societal development is not an excuse for homophobia and oppression. Especially if even for reasons outside of their control, migrants travel to the west, and then take up arms against societal standards such lgbt acceptance. Especially when members of that migrant community come out as lgbt. The community cannot just say “Oopsie, we’re not ready yet, back in the closet”. That’s basically what they’re saying, they’re acting like the concept that there are lgbt members in “working class migrant communities” is laughable and some absurd notion, they straight say that marriage equality for gay infidividuals is something they are against and would cut their leftist allies off over, and that their communities are near devioud of LGBT influence except for dastardly western imperialist influence.They are living in some bizarre wonderland that they’ve constructed specifically to tailor to their worldview. Even though it is devious of reality.
Also there is not a homosexual/heterosexual binary in the modern day lgbt community, escept for deranged conservatives. That’s the entire point of the pansexual and bisexual orientations just to name a few.
Overall, I agree with most of your points and concepts, but you’re still playing a post hoc defense for an author who is most obviously not as charitable as you, and I doubt believe the things you are trying say. Hence their reactionary, homophobic, and extremely bizarre language and strances in several topics (hence my original post).
Hmm I’m not sure you’re picking up what I’m putting down. I’m saying that “homosexuality” is a relatively new concept (so is “heterosexuality” btw). It’s a word that people of the distant past definitely did not use and definitely did not identify with. It’s a word that many people of the present don’t identify with either, even if you can make the argument that they fit the criteria. But really, what does it matter? The goal of queer liberation should be to free people from discrimination, not to force all cultures to subscribe to the same notion of gender and sexuality.
I don’t know why you think the author is making excuses for homophobia. And I don’t think they meant to imply that straight and gay are the only sexual orientations (they say LGBT a lot and bisexual is right there in the acronym). I’m not trying to play defense for this person, I don’t know who they even are, but it feels like we’ve read completely different articles ngl :s
Anyway, I interpreted the author as saying that white people need to meet indigenous people where they’re at & allow their communities to deal with their social issues in their own way, at their own pace. And that it’s unacceptable for white people to demand them to change according to white standards. Especially when those same white people are apathetic to all their other economic and political concerns.
Like, if you’ve had to live with police brutality, unemployment, and homelessness all your life, would you believe that an outside movement to protect the gay rights of your community is sincere? When that movement is led by the very same people who subjugate you in the first place?
Just to add, I view this article as very complimentary to this one titled “LGBTQ Rights” as Unconventional Warfare that was shared in Lemmygrad a few months prior.
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They erase the Sunnah!
I agree completely!
What was Mao’s famous dictum?
From the masses, to the masses.
Without consent from the people, it will fall apart.
Non-hetero sexual relations and diverse gender expressions is not contradictory to Islamic society either but I don’t see how succumbing to the “LGBTQ+” label will do anything.
To quote the article in the OP:
Very numerous forms of social-sexual relations were corrupted by the colonial fact. The indigènes of the world are fighting to reconstruct them and to rebuild the link to the fragments of social history and memories at risk of disappearing, not without certain ambiguities and not without being interlaced with the white heterosexual model.8
And I will especially reject any attempt at those that paint a broad brush at my culture and my family for being reactionary, when Colonialism and Imperialism itself was not negated overnight.
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I just mean that colonialism and imperialism still exists. It wasn’t abolished overnight after gaining independence, so the basis for the deprivation of a majority of muslims still exists. We can’t even industrialise let alone “progress” (in the least liberal sense of the term).
In other words the contradiction still exists, and can only be negated/resolved by anti-imperialist class struggle.
Only a few countries have achieved complete decolonisation (of both society and economy) and has the “cultural capacity” to get rid of colonial ideas, like the orientalism you mention.
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What’s the article? I wanna read it!
here it is: https://www.decolonialtranslation.com/english/gay-universalism-homoracialism-and-marriage-for-all.html
but i already added it to the main post aswell
Interesting read, I agree that the “straight” vs “gay” conception of human sexuality is very western and not at all universal. And that white people will often force change onto racialized communities that they have no understanding of at all. And that in the hands of a capitalist government, gay rights are just another pretense for colonization.
I’ve never considered how imposing the gay identity onto other cultures is like imposing race onto them, but it kinda is isn’t it? Definitely have to reconsider the language I use when talking about queer liberation. Hmm…
I’ve seen someone on reddit ask “why do middle Easterners take so much oride in heterosexuality” and that sentence hit me like a semi truck lol.
ah fk mb I thought I added it in the main. Doing it now.
Who is the author exactly? I think that context is important in the reading of this essay.
From what I know, she’s an activist based in France, that was part of the “Indigenous of the Republic”.
They would fall under the so-called decolonial Marxism, if we were to give a term in my opinion.
What prompted me to share this article was I read this other article by the Human Rights Watch, and the entire article was the standard for LGBT issues in muslim countries, written by a Western organisation.
But what made really laugh was this paragraph:
The film has no gay sex scenes and no kissing. In fact, it invites young Indonesians to contemplate how rich traditional ethnic culture must fight to survive imported cultures and religions, including Islam, that have entered Indonesia. [Emphasis my own]
Utterly ahistorical trash. Right before this they mentioned that the cross-gender dance, lengger, was
in Serat Centhini, a 12-volume compilation of Javanese tales and teachings, published in 1814. It contains verses on sexuality, including overlapping femininity and masculinity. Serat Centhini depicts Java in the 17th century.
17th Century Java - which by that point has had established Islamic sultanates, which I repeat, was spread peacefully throughout Maritime Southeast Asia. Wars of conquest did occur, but they were the exception not the rule. The dance itself became even more popular in Java as a means to spread Islam.
Only a western organisation like HRW would be egregious enough in falsifying Islamic Southeast Asian history to fulfil their orientalist visions of Islam.
Utterly disgusting.
