This page features computer generated text of the source audio. It may contain errors or omissions, so always listen back to the original media to confirm content. You can search the text using Ctrl-F, and you can also play the audio by clicking on a desired timestamp.
OK, Good morning, everybody. Um, sorry for the slight delay, but we'll get things underway. Now. This morning we have, um, Ian Anderson. Ian is a queer student active in socialist politics. Ali is also going to speak to us third generation central colonist in Palestine, an arch feminist and Palestine Solidarity activist. And MC is going [00:00:30] to speak as well. Um, although not originally on this panel, she It's great that she's able to speak with us this morning. Um, she's a member of Shati, a feminist organisation working to end family violence in Asian, Asian, Middle Eastern and African communities in Aotearoa and Australia. And we have another speaker who will be hopefully arriving shortly. Um, which is who is Nadia is a teacher and, um, active Palestine. Solidarity work. I end up, get things underway. Cool. Thanks. [00:01:00] So, um yeah. So this session we're gonna be talking about, um, imperialism, nationalism and queer liberation. Um, and I've just got a sort of warning beforehand that, um, there'll be some discussion of torture and sexual violence, so you know that that's just people know. And, um Yeah, OK, so I'll start with, um, something that was one of the initial reasons why we wanted to have this discussion. [00:01:30] Um, and I'm not against the people who participated in this in this particular action I participated. Um, I get where it's coming from, but I think it shows some of the problems with, uh, with where, where politics are at right now. Uh, and a lot of the, um, kind of imperialist world. So, um, this this was, uh, a call out a call for a, um a a rally in solidarity with people in Russia and globally, uh, against, [00:02:00] uh, against queer oppression. It said, uh, citizens will march and rally in cities across the globe Rio, London, Berlin, New York, Sydney and more standing up against inequality and discrimination. The time has come where we send a message to countries like Russia, Uganda, Iran and every homo slash trans oppressive nation that all humans are created equal and deserve freedom. We must take a stand. So, what do people get out of that? Have we, um is [00:02:30] there any like, um, issues? People can see with that? It implies that countries like the UK and Australia and America aren't home own trans prison nations. Yeah, exactly. So for example, in a country where, um, trans women are 20 times more likely to be imprisoned than than other people. Uh, that, um, that those those nations aren't trans oppressive. So it's like there's a set of nations which are which are not hormone [00:03:00] trans oppressive, and a set of nations that are, uh so there's Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. So, um, and on the one side, you have all humans are created equal, which is obviously from all men are created equal. So it's growing from the US Constitution. It's, um, tying in. [00:03:30] Uh, so this is kind of tying in, um, like queer liberation in theory with like with the United States in particular and with allegiance with the United States. Um, And so it sets up this, uh, this this two sided kind of binary thing. E equality, freedom on one side and also a minority world imperialist nations on one side and then home on trans of inequality and discrimination and majority world nations on on the other side, or at least nations not aligned [00:04:00] with the US in a lot of cases. So Russia, for example, um and then, uh, we've got so and So this kind of is like the idea of the West versus the rest is kind of one of the ways you could kind of frame that. Um uh, what are some other differences? Uh, one difference. We could see if the binary here is kind of US and Russia, which obviously Russia was kind of the great, you know, the great evil for US imperialism for a long [00:04:30] time. But one comparison you can make is that the first US state legalised sodomy in 1962. And it was legalised nationwide in 2003, Um, whereas the first legalisation of homosexuality in Russia, which was arguably the first legalisation after setting up the kind of legal infrastructure that policed homosexuality in Europe uh was in 1917. So this isn't to say that Russia has necessarily a better record than the US at all. It's to say that the way we understand these differences are like ideological and the fact that we're the fact [00:05:00] that it's considered normal that the US definitely has a better record, and the rest of the world definitely has a worse record, is, um is obviously a distortion. So this is Orientalism. Um, so it's kind of the idea of the West against the rest, which, you know, Edward talked about this. That, um, the basic distinction between the east and the West is the starting point. Uh uh, to, uh, for elaborating theories concerning the Orient. Um, so and the Orient, obviously is a is kind of a construction here, and is [00:05:30] it conflates a lot of different situations into one? Um, and he says the whole point is not that it's a misrepresentation of some Oriental essence, uh, which he doesn't for a moment believe, but that it operates, as representations usually do for a purpose according to a tendency in a specific historical, intellectual and even economic setting. So, in other words, these devices are being used to justify a certain kind of domination. It's not. It's not necessarily that they're accurate or inaccurate, but that they are being used in a certain [00:06:00] way to serve a certain kind of power. Um, so how did we get to this kind of division of the world? Because it hasn't always existed, and it won't always exist. Um, uh, So Leslie Feinberg, um, argues in transgender warriors. Um, that a human history were compressed into a year. 360 days would consist of communal societies with normalised gender and sexual diversity. So, for example, um uh, uh, and And Samoa is an is an example of this, uh, [00:06:30] Or, you know, and, um, you know, there's a huge range of gender and sexual diversities. Do you see gender and sexual diversity throughout human history And that only the last five days of human history, uh, will consist of class societies with a sort of punitive Gen, uh, punitively sort of policed, um, gender binary and a punitively policed, um, family structure. Um, so again, how do we get here? And this is again. It's compressing [00:07:00] thousands of years of history in Feinberg's terms in five days and here into a few minutes, So it's gonna be simplistic. Um, but, uh, this is kind of this is looking specifically at the the history that happened in Europe because Europe was in the, um was then the, uh, the, uh, the exporter of a particular model of gender and sexuality worldwide. Uh, you know, through colonisation. So you had the emergence of class society, Um, and the need to, uh you. You had, um, the emergence [00:07:30] of, you know, a surplus. So, uh, so you could, um You could, uh, people could rely on the labour of others, Uh, and to so then to to in order to protect this private property and protect patriarchal inheritance, you saw the enforcement of this new stripped gender binary. So an early sort of, uh, an early early on in the sort of Juda Christian tradition. And, you know, in, uh, in in Deon and you first started to see, you know, prohibition of eu saying, [00:08:00] you know, there will be no people who are wounded in the stones, uh, cannot be in the kingdom of the Lord, so And this was like to do with policing, uh, previously existing pagan pagan traditions. Uh, you know, various traditions of gender, gender and sexual diversity, uh, to protect this new patriarchal private property system. So there there was a global expansion, uh, from here. So the, uh, expansion to the Americas, Uh, which which, uh, began to impose the gender binary. [00:08:30] And the struggle against this colonisation was also, you know, was also a struggle for, um for these, um, these forms of society which, uh, which were more, um, which had more gender and sexual diversity. So, for example, later on, when you had crazy horse, uh, resisting resisting US uh, resisting colonisation. Um, crazy horse had, uh, had had names, uh, granted to him, uh, two spirit names granted to him and, uh, had relationships with two spirit people. So, [00:09:00] uh, and whereas the colonial authorities worldwide were trying to enforce this kind of strict strip new gender system. So, for example, here in in this country, um, uh, there was a worry that, um, men were the men and the colonies were having sex with each other too much, so they had to bring more women over so that they could set up nuclear families. Uh, so this is a very a very deliberate strategy of, uh, of enforcing this new system, but I'm kind of skipping ahead of myself there because, uh, then from the emergence of feudalism, [00:09:30] you had the capitalist revolutions in the Americas and in France, uh, and which, you know, which kind of created a a new kind of a gender binary, a new gender division of labour. So you had the the division between, um particularly unpaid women's work and, um, and paid men's work. Uh, and with that, uh, from colonisation the establishment of global imperialism. So that's economic, military and cultural dominance of a global majority by a global minority. [00:10:00] Um, and all that time you've had resistance movements. So there were the European, uh, peasants movements, uh, used cross dressing as a form of resistance. Feinberg claims Jonah A as a transgender warrior because, um, they were sentenced, Um, not strictly speaking, uh, for resisting, resisting, like the dominance of the church militarily but for cross dressing. And there were also folk heroes like, uh, Rebecca and her daughters, uh, who cross dressed when they were [00:10:30] smashing, smashing tollgates, among other things. So there was a as a peasant form of peasant resistance in in Europe, also in struggles against colonisation. So I mentioned a crazy horse who had, um who you know as well as struggling for land and all that were struggling for the protection of of a culture which was, which was more diverse in terms of gender and sexuality and through, um, new, um, new workers movements. You saw you saw new struggles for, uh, for gender and sexual liberation. So, [00:11:00] um, so you saw, um, in the late late 19th, early 20th century, uh, struggles that, um That culminated, for example, in the Russian Revolution, which I previously mentioned which, um, which saw the, you know, legalisation of something which had been prohibited only in the last last few centuries. Um, only relatively recently, you could say, um and then urban struggles. Uh, so you had, um, gender nonconforming folk, uh, clashing with [00:11:30] police in these in these in the new sort of urban urban settings. Uh, and out of, uh, out of all this, um, and this sort of particular set of historical contradictions, you saw the emergence of a politics of gay visibility. So there were sort of for a long time before what we now know is gave visibility, but only really, in the last century and a half. Maybe you had, uh, the establishment [00:12:00] of men's sort of homosexual organisations. So they were kind of fairly, um, you could say fairly conservative. Uh, so there was the homosexual law Reform Society in the UK. The Medi Society in the US, uh, the door society here, uh, and those predated Stonewall. They won some legal reforms. Uh, and at the at the same time, you had the the street level struggles that were happening, uh, which also predated Stonewall. And then in Stonewall riots in 1969 and the imperialist world, you saw, um, [00:12:30] the emergence of the gay Liberation front. So this was in New York and the U, uh, in the context of, um, much bigger, much bigger struggles. Um, you saw riots where, uh, where basically, um, people took on people, took on police and, uh, there. So people like Sylvia, um uh, Sylvia Rivera. Um, who were, um, who were involved in, uh uh, other struggles at the time were quite, uh, were quite were at the forefront of that, [00:13:00] Uh, and out of that, there was a politics of of gay visibility. So people marching on the streets saying, You know, we're here, that kind of thing. Um, and that momentarily kind of, um, merged a number of struggles, but they quickly, um, broke apart again. So, um, so in the early seventies, there was a split between the the trans groups and, um, the gay groups, Uh, so from the gay Liberation front group you had then street transaction revolutionaries, which was a group and the, um [00:13:30] the more sort of gay rights groups, like, um, the Human Rights campaign. Uh, and so, over the following decades, the new gay movement, uh, won some legal reforms. Uh, so removal from, uh, from the DS M The, um the sort of the the sort of, uh, no longer being a mental illness. Uh, you saw a legalisation. You saw civil unions, Uh, now marriage, uh, in the US, the appeal of don't ask, don't tell. Quite recently, [00:14:00] um, so and so now in this context, um, this, uh, with this, you know, this gay movement that's won these struggles. You see what gets termed homo noma? Uh, this is by by sort of discourse, theorists, Relatively recently, uh, homo noma and Homo nationalism. So and the the the post Cold War US kind of emerged as the the only credible ideological option. The arbiter of feminism and freedom struggles. Um, and queer identity [00:14:30] is, um, queer. Queerness is kind of contingent or sort of reliant on these these wider structures of power. So we can't understand queerness without understanding its relationship to these wider structures of power. So to simplify Homo Noma, uh, could be sort of the, uh, an idea that benefits or as a form of struggle, that most benefits kind of white monogamous, uh, people who want to marry a member of the [00:15:00] same sex and, uh, have Children, which isn't necessarily anything against those people, but it's leaving everyone else behind. Um, And then there's, uh, Homo nationalism, which is kind of queerness that is contingent or reliant on structures of imperialist nationalism. So we can see Lady Gaga here where, um where? It's kind of, um, this queerness. She's in front of a US flag talking about Don't ask, don't tell talking about how our boys should be able. Our boys on the front line should be able to live out of the closet. [00:15:30] So it's this queer queerness that's validated through going out and killing people in Afghanistan and Iraq. Um and so, uh, so just just be a, uh uh And this is this is obviously, um, part of how the culture dominance of imperialism is justified. Uh says the ascendancy of whiteness does not require heterosexuality so much as it requires heteronormative or its memory in the form of Homo Noma. So? [00:16:00] So Part of the cultural cultural dominance of imperialism is justified through these, um, gender and sexual systems. So, um, Abu Ghraib, uh, which, which is an example. Uh, just be four goes into it. But And this is obviously what I was, uh, warning about. So, um, if people if people aren't comfortable with this, you know, let someone let me know kind of thing, but, uh, or at least or yeah. Anyway, So, um Anyway, uh, so [00:16:30] this in in terms of Abu Ghraib, which was, uh, I'm sure people are aware of a case where a number of photos of, um, of people being tortured, um uh, were in Afghanistan were sorry. No. Were, uh, were released. Um, and this, uh, there's an aspect of that was that this narrative of cultural difference, uh, was used to plan these methods of torture. So there was kind of this whole thing of Well, [00:17:00] uh, in in in a lot of discussions of of torture. Uh, by, you know, by in the US documents, there was a discussion that well, Arab men and Muslim men are not comfortable with homosexuality, so we need to force them into these situations in order to in order to, um, torture them and then to criticise the torture, Uh, people are saying, Well, you know, people, they're not respecting cultural difference, you know, they're not respecting the Arab men and Muslim men aren't comfortable with, uh, with these forms of sexuality. [00:17:30] Not that you know that a Western person, like you know, would, you know, would be obviously perfectly comfortable with being tortured and forced to do things against their will and to do sexual things against their will, as if as if it was the Arab men's homophobia, that was that was the torture and not not the actual And you know, not the actual violation of consent and the methods of torture. So, um, Jess [00:18:00] says, given the unbridled homophobia, among other phobias demonstrated by the US guards, it is ironic yet predictable that the US emerges as sexually exceptional, less homophobic and more tolerant of homosexuality and less tainted by misogyny and fundamentalism than the oppressed Modest in Middle East. Um, so even now with this, you know, with this clearly like violent and sexually violent, um, form [00:18:30] of, uh, form of sort of imperialism. Still, uh, as as, says, the Orient, um symbolises the space of repression and perversion, and the side of freedom has has been relocated to Western identity. And at the same time, imperialist violence against women is normalised because it's it's not considered exceptional that women are raped. Uh, and, uh, during war time, it's considered exceptional that men are forced to do sexual things against their will during war time. Uh, so [00:19:00] you had, uh, Mubarak Dahir, Uh, who is a, um, a gay, A gay man of Arab descent. Um, talks about how there's this claim by people in the gay and lesbian community that the invasion and occupation of Iraq is not a gay issue. Uh, and this and he says that it crumbled here because, um, because as a gay man and a person of Arab descent, he felt a double. He felt a double sting, and he was wondering he was wondering, Essentially, [00:19:30] was the problem that they were, um, was it more was the Was it considered more despicable that they were performing gay sex or that they were Arabs? And that this was that being considered a form of yeah, um and so he he said that these are These are essentially the same issues for me. Um uh, OK. And so more recently, I think an an example of Of how, um, homo nationalism has [00:20:00] played out, which is bringing us back to the initial kind of discussion I started from is, uh is the recent stuff around Russia, Uh, where I think Russia and Eastern Europe generally, depending on circumstances and depending on depending on power, can be cast as kind of white or as Oriental, uh, depending on what what purpose and what sort of power is being served. So, for example, during the Cold War, Russia was kind of, um was, you know, the the Bolsheviks were cast, as you [00:20:30] know, as as Jewish, you know, long eyebrows kind of car, you know, Eastern Oriental caricatures. So depending on what purpose is being served, they can be cast as white or oriental. Um, and just so, um, and I think the the way a lot of the Russia stuff has been cast has been quite Orientalist. So, um so the you've seen obviously, recently, there's been a re entrenchment of homophobia. It's part of a a sort of nation building project. [00:21:00] It also involves attacks on ethnic minorities. And it's because of, like, an economic insecurity that, uh, that that these groups are being scapegoated. And so, uh, LGBT groups in Russia have advi advised against boycotts, uh, advised against the Olympics boycott, for example. Uh, and whereas a lot of prominent gay men and gay groups have called have called for boycotts, Um, but for particularly boycotting the Olympics, moving it to Vancouver, which is, you know, which is colonised land and the previous [00:21:30] Olympics in Vancouver. Uh, there were there were boycott struggles because of that. Um, and whereas the LGBT groups in Russia argue for a politics of visibility, uh, the the Western groups aren't really paying attention and have even called for boycotts on supposedly Russian vodka, which actually isn't produced in Russia. So actually not paying attention to to the situation and just kind of thinking they can go ahead and do it. Do this for other people. Um, so what does this mean for a politics of global queer [00:22:00] queer equality? Which is? That was the slogan that was used for this action in Civic Square and solidarity with Russia. And it's it's, uh, a slogan that I like. I like the idea of it. But what would it mean? What would politics of global queer equality look like? Um, I think partly it means paying attention to the voices of gender minorities in the majority world and in general, paying attention to the voices of people you are solid with and not not trying to act [00:22:30] for people. Uh, it means, uh, struggles for gender and sexual liberation must also mean struggles for cultural and economic liberation. And those things can't be entirely divorced. Uh, and there's a couple of quotes which I think describe, um uh, What? I see this as which are, uh, nobody's free until everybody's free. So instead of this idea of people in the West as free and other people as unfree that, um, that nobody's free until everybody's free. Um, and [00:23:00] also a quote from Carl Livni, who is, uh, someone who? A Communist who opposed World War One. Uh, when many of the Socialists of the time were supporting World War One said, um or the reformists, he said the main enemy is at home. So for us, I think, uh, for particularly, you know, white people in the imperialist world. The main enemy is at home. Uh, that's me. Uh, and we'll move on. Yeah, right. Thank you. Yeah. Um, [00:23:30] so I'm specifically talking about pink washing, but I kind of wanted to start by fleshing out some of the things that Ian introduced. So, like Ian said, by home normative, we mean a normative way of being gay. That's the idea. But the gay person is someone who's cisgender monogamous, white, middle class, you know, Got lots of those pink dollars. Definitely not disabled, because [00:24:00] disabled people aren't even supposed to have a sexuality. And the normative gay someone who just wants to be equal just wants to be able to serve their country in the military, to get a job and get married and have babies and fit into heteronormative society, you know? So this is the person who's really nonthreatening because they don't want to destroy marriage of a nuclear family or any of those really important institutions. And they're just like you, and they should [00:24:30] have equality. Homo nationalism stands for homo normative nationalism, and it's about the way that the because of LGBT U guys, but actually usually just G and LG gets used to prop up nationalism and to justify imperialism and militarism. So, for example, when people use, um, arguments about Arab culture being homophobic [00:25:00] or Muslim culture being homophobic, to justify imperialist views on countries like Iran or Afghanistan or Iraq, or in a on a more local level, I think we saw a lot of that in the kind of media discussion around the Marriage Equality Act where it was like, Oh, the problem is, um, Pacific Islanders. The culture is conservative and we're really religious and patriarchal and like these nice white people that totally support equality. [00:25:30] And I think it's worth thinking about the kind of correlation that exists between the social sense of some ques of normative gays and the guys of particularly anti Arab, anti Muslim racism. Because identity is always defined in opposition to someone. And it's like this one oppressed group or a section of it has been allowed into the fold of society of normative society at the expense [00:26:00] of someone else. Um, which, like Ian was saying, is about emphasising this dichotomy between the White West, which is modern and progressive and liberal, and the brown east. You know, Arabs and Muslims and South East Indians and other populations that are constructed as conservative and patriarchal and homophobic and violent and backwards and dangerous terrorists. Pink washing is specifically about [00:26:30] the way that GL BTU guys are used as a marketing strategy to whitewash over unethical behaviour. So we see that in the corporate world where we have this kind of gay friendly pink dollar marketing campaigns that are used to distract us from the way that corporations treat their workers and we also see it, for example, when the New Zealand Defence Force wins an award for being really inclusive of LGBT personnel, [00:27:00] which is a nice way of distracting us from the fact that the strategic interests that the New Zealand Defence Force is protecting usually aren't the interests of the people who actually live in the countries that are being invaded. For the purpose of this talk I'm going to specifically concentrate on is Israel as an example of pink washing. Um, and that is mostly because I'm Israeli or more accurately, I'm a secular colonist on Palestinian [00:27:30] land. I, um I'm not 100% sure how familiar you guys all are with the situation in Palestine at the moment, so I'm going to summarise it really quickly. So the yellow bits on the map are the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, collectively known as the occupied Palestinian territories in Gaza. Palestinians are living under siege in the West Bank. They [00:28:00] live under military occupation. The blue bits are the 1948 territory, which is more commonly known as Israel. And Palestinian citizens of Israel are subject to a whole lot of legal and institutional discrimination as well as discrimination on a personal level. So just one example. We have a hotline in Israel that people can phone to report Jewish women who are dating Palestinian men. Um, meanwhile, [00:28:30] there are 7 million Palestinian refugees who live in exile. It's the biggest refugee population in the world, and most of them live in refugee camps in neighbouring countries. So it's entire generations of people who've lived their whole lives in refugee camps. Um, so essentially, what we have here is an apartheid state, and maintaining an apartheid state requires you to do a whole lot of public relations work to convince the rest of the world that actually you [00:29:00] were a beacon of human rights and democracy and a light unto the nations and not an apartheid state at all. And that's where we end as your comes in. Brand Israel is part of this marketing campaign that the Israeli state has created which, UM, part of it is to promote Israel as a gay friendly country. Um and really, this is a two prolonged approach, on the one [00:29:30] hand promoting Israel as this modern, democratic, liberal country where women have equality and queer people have equality. And at the same time it's about constructing Arabs and Muslims in general, but specifically Palestinians as conservative and patriarchal and homophobic and violent. So it's again about that dichotomy of them and us. It's about situating Israel as part of the West and like the West [00:30:00] and situating Palestinians as part of the scary Terrorist East. So that's exactly the kind of orientalism that Ian was talking about. For example, I don't know if any of you have seen this image before it was circulated on the Internet. Um, does anyone know the history of of the pictures [00:30:30] here? OK, so first of all, the image on is a little bit misleading. The two soldiers and the photo aren't actually lovers, and one of them is heterosexual. The photo was staged by the Israeli Defence Force spokesperson's office. They got two of the soldiers in their service to post for this photo, and they posted it on their Facebook page with the caption. It's pre month. [00:31:00] Did you know that the ID F treats all of its soldiers equally? Let's see how many shares you can get through this photo. It was quite an embarrassment for them when it was later revealed that the entire thing was staged. Meanwhile, the immun on the left is completely incorrect. This photo isn't from Palestine, it's from Ivan, and it was circulated a lot in the western media. Um, I guess in the early two thousands, [00:31:30] um, the two boys in the photo were hanged by the Uranian State. The reason is unclear. Originally, Western media outlets were reporting, but they were hanged for having consensual sex with each avenue. But human rights NGO S didn't find any evidence that corroborates that, and later it emerged that it's more likely that they were hanged for raping a younger boy. Either way, it's horrific. You know the death penalty [00:32:00] is never OK, especially when it's used against Children. But this is an example of a way that information about human rights violations gets manipulated in order to justify imperialist intentions, whether it's against Palestinians or against UN. Oh, part of the ban, as Yale campaign has been about promoting as Yale as a gay tourism destination. And I guess it's, um, kind of a double win, because on the one hand it's a propaganda win for the [00:32:30] state. It's also good for the economy again, it's about this idea of pink dollars, but apparently all gays have millions of to spend. And so these guys, Vinland and Bruno, are the first gay couple to get married after France legalised same sex marriage earlier this year, Um, the CEO of Tel Aviv Global and Tourism heli or came up with this amazing marketing idea where she invited this couple to come and honeymoon [00:33:00] in Tel Aviv during Tel Aviv Pride Week. So, um, you actually have to congratulate here. It's a great PR plan, and she knew it, you know, she told The Times of Israel. The meaning beneath our mission is to go out in conversation about Tel Aviv for people to know that Tel Aviv is a place of tolerance, of business and tourism, a place beyond the conflict. You know, a place beyond the conflict that is built on the of ethnically cleansed villages but [00:33:30] nevertheless a place beyond the conflict. Um, Vincent told the media that for us, it's very important to be a bridge, especially here in the Middle East, so that what's happened in France and the way we are received in here can become an example for the rest of the Middle East. So there you have it again, um, imperialist countries like Israel and France as the beacon of enlightenment that will teach those backwards Middle East people how [00:34:00] you should be more tolerant. This kind of pink washing has found its way to New Zealand as well. Does anyone of you remember this plac ad? Um, yeah. So at queer overnight 2011, someone showed up with this, um, plaque? A. So here we have an event which lots of people here put heaps of work into organising. That was supposed to be about standing up [00:34:30] against re specifically trans phobia and homophobia, and somehow somebody managed to degale it and use it as an opportunity to incite discrimination and prejudice against Arab and Muslim people. Of course, sometimes pink washing is a lot subtler than that. Um, I read this in express a few months ago. It's about well, it's an opinion piece on how Auckland should have API Centre, but [00:35:00] as an example of the use of a gay cultural centre in Tel Aviv, which, um, I don't know if you can see very clearly in the photo. It's got a couple of small rainbow flags and this ginormous as your alley flag, which is like, you know, as long as this room and covers the entire building. And, you know, I don't blame the guy who wrote this article for being impressed with Tel Aviv having a gay cultural centre because Tel Aviv is a really cool city. It's got a cool, queer scene, [00:35:30] and it probably seems really innocuous on the surface. But talking about how great Tel Aviv is for queers, while ignoring the wider context of racism and ethnic cleansing is exactly how Pink washing works. And, um Schulman, who's a Jewish American lesbian guy who put it really well. And she said Tel Aviv is a theatre set behind it is the reality of profound oppression and violation of human rights. [00:36:00] And here's the thing that a lot of people miss when we talk about pink washing and when they use pink washing arguments. Transphobia and homophobia aren't limited to Arab and Muslim societies. Israel is an incredibly homophobic and transphobic society. New Zealand has its own problems with antique, which we are all way too aware of. And more than that, I think people tend to see struggles against transphobia and homophobia and sexism as [00:36:30] separate from struggles against racism and colonisation. And they really, really aren't. They can't be fought separately. They're too intertwined and and Palestine in particular. They were all part of the same matrix of violence and oppression. And that's not that comes through in really practical ways. For example, if the Israeli security services find out that a Palestinian is gay or they will use that against them and blackmail them [00:37:00] into becoming an informant for Israel, and if they refuse to, then they will add them to their community, even though it could put their life in danger. So these things are really connected on a visual level, And that's why Palestinian queer groups like al QA are swapped and Palestinian queers for boycott, divestment and sanctions all work to fight both anti queer oppression and racism and colonialism of the [00:37:30] Israeli state at the same time. Um, and here is Haneen Maliki, who's a Palestinian queer activist and the founder of Al QA. Um, talking about few reasons for rejecting the kind of pink washing arguments that the Israeli state makes. Where is Yale often argues that, um, it's acting to protect Palestinian gays, and I've heard people claim that Palestinian gays find refuge in Israel. That's not really true. [00:38:00] So unlike Russia, where local LGBT groups have advised against a boycott, Palestinian queer groups actually endorse the Palestinian call for boycott divestment and sanctions on Israel. Um, in 2005 Palestinian civil society groups launched the B DS campaign, and a part of this campaign has been queer. B DS B DS stands for boycott divestment and sanctions, [00:38:30] which is specifically about challenging pink washing, um, and the group Palestinian Queers for boycott, divestment and sanctions. As one of the groups that has been formed to work on queer B DS. So the strategy of B DS is to use nonviolent tactics to force Israel to address its occupation and oppression of Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories, in Israel and in exile. [00:39:00] And there are really basic demands which are the ones that Palestinian groups have agreed. I have minimum basics that I needed for some kind of justice to be achieved and for some kind of peace to be possible. Um, and here in, we've recently launched the A B DS network. Um, after a nationwide conference, [00:39:30] our first campaign is focusing on G four S, which is a private security company that provides prisons and checkpoints for Israel. Um, so in that sense, I think it has a lot of overlap with local and global issues around instigation and prison privatisation. And we're inviting LGBT organisations to sign on to the letter that we are going to send Super fund to ask for to divest their shoes and G four. Yes, So if you want [00:40:00] to learn more, you can come along to our campaign launch, which is in three weeks time at the Hall. This is gonna be workshops and music and food and poetry. You can learn more about their campaign and how you can get involved. And also, I've got a bunch of leaflets along today. So if anyone wants to do your own research, I've got a list of some useful books and also websites when where you can learn more. [00:40:30] Um, and now I think Nadia is going to speak more specifically on. Um well, I'm feminist nationalism. I suppose so. Thank you. Thank you to everybody. Um, my name is Nadia. I've lost my voice a little bit. So, um, I'm gonna try and keep this relatively short as well, because I feel like [00:41:00] a lot of the points have kind of started to already be flushed out. And what I really wanna do is kind of just add to that a little bit. Um and I want to add to that from the perspective of a Palestinian who has spent quite a bit of time in Palestine and Israel and also someone who's spent a lot of time living in the UK and New Zealand. And I'm I'm really glad that I'm going to have this conversation because actually, it's probably one of my least favourite things to talk about. Um [00:41:30] is women in the Middle East because so often what I feel is that as soon as that emerges, people feel this instance sort of like they're waiting for me to say that the the the assumptions and the things that they already have, And when I say things that contradict those assumptions, they seem a little bit like throw. But when I say things that play into those assumptions, they really, really seem to Oh, yeah, yeah, I get that. Oh, yeah, no, it must be terrible. It must be really, really hard for women over there. So I think [00:42:00] that we all already have to acknowledge that we will already have ideas about this stuff. And I think even as a Palestinian, you know, I see them in myself and it's sometimes just about unlearning and recognising why things are framed the way they are, why we have the narrative that we have, and actually just picking that apart a little bit and saying, Why is it that we're so familiar with the image of someone like Malala? You know who's at the moment just hanging out with Obama and it's like [00:42:30] on the one hand, we've got this woman and you see her and I You know, I totally of this young woman who I You you guys all know who I'm talking about, right? Yeah. Um, who, you know, we see taking the world stage. And it's not very often that you see, you know, a 16 year old or a 14 year old 15 year old Pakistani woman talking about, you know, the right to education and that kind of a a forum. But I think that, um, with someone like Malala, it's important to remember that she serves a purpose. And that's why [00:43:00] um, you know, she has her own agency. But she's people like Obama for people like Gordon Brown, who voted for the war in Iraq and are now saying, Oh, you know, like we really need to support women's rights in the Middle East that, um, for them she simply serves a purpose because they're not gonna bring up, you know? And I'm just gonna brief trigger warning here. Um, I'm not gonna go too much into it, but, um yeah, a bit of a a bit of a story of, um uh yeah, [00:43:30] sexual abuse and rape. And, um but there was a young young woman, the same young girl, same age as, uh as Malala Albi who, you know, none of us know the name of like, I can actually put that out there. I didn't know her name until three days ago. And, um, the you know, what happened to her was that during the occupation of Iraq, five US soldiers actually gang raped her. [00:44:00] Um, then proceeded to murder her entire family and her and burn the house down. And I think the thing is, is that so often when we're talking about culture and we're talking about culture in reference to cultures of violence or cultures of violence against women, we're always talking about, um, cultures of the Middle East. And, um, one of my favourite, uh, speakers on this issue is, um, A And what she says is, um, I'm gonna say something here, and that's that's what we don't talk about culture because often [00:44:30] these arguments are so unevenly distributed. And I think it's a really dangerous thing to say, um, to to attribute these things to culture because we don't attribute, um, you know, for example, the cultures Well, she says, What if she was to something as a culture that that promotes violence. She would say it was a culture of militarism and a culture of militarism. And, uh, and, uh, like, you know, the occupation and invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan or Israel [00:45:00] through Palestine. Um, is actually what, um we don't We don't denote that to a Protestant or Catholic or Christian or or Juda, you know, or Judaism. We just call it politics, you know? And it's related to economics, and it's related to all this stuff. Um, So I think if we are talking about this stuff in the West, then we need to actually be asking, OK, um, there's this culture of militarism and our question is, how do we, you [00:45:30] know, stop these awful cultures doing these things for these women? But how do we stop this culture of militarism That's actually stopping these women from moving, stopping these women from, you know, being able to, uh, organise and and do everything that they they need to do, really. And, um, to to round off that bit because I think I could talk, you know, for a long time about a lot of the things that afflict, um, women in the Middle East, and I could go on to talk about the occupation of Palestine, you know, for a long time. [00:46:00] Um, but I actually wanna do something a bit different, which is I want to talk about some of the women that I know that, um, you know, fight these things in their own ways, and and because that's the argument that I want to make is that, um you know, these these things they come about, they can't be imposed. Um, women themselves are organising and and doing their thing in the Middle East very well, and have been doing so for a long time. Um, so I wanna talk about, [00:46:30] um first of all, I want to talk about my grandma, who is fucking awesome. And she, when she was like, 14 grew up and she had, like, seven brothers, and she decided she wanted to smoke a pipe, and so she just, like, picked up a pipe. And she was like, I'm smoking this pipe now because my brother smoked a pipe and everyone, everyone in that culture was like, uh not sure whether you should be smoking the pipe. And she was like, I'm gonna do it, and she does it. She does it to this day. [00:47:00] She still smokes a pipe. Um, I know that's a really small example, but to me, that's just that's just one of many of the women that I know that do these things. I'm thinking about my auntie Who, um, you know, her husband. My uncle has been a political prisoner for pretty much their entire married life, you know, merely for organising, um, you know, merely for being someone who is politically active in the way that we are right now in this room. Um, he, you know, he [00:47:30] spent a long, long time in Israeli prisons, and right up at the front of every march, you have Selwa on the megaphone shouting at people and just absolutely, you know, just really, really demolishing all those arguments. You hear about these women because she just to me, she represents everything that inspires me And she, you know, she would not miss a march. And, um, when my dad went to get married, they need, um, sort of like a different signatories, [00:48:00] and and they need two male signatories, and, uh, she just actually just called the guy out the judge out at the office and just said, I'll sign it, I'll sign it. And that's just you know, I know so many women like that, um that are doing that thing. And I think, you know, when you think about the things that affect these women, the stuff doesn't happen in a vacuum when actually, so many of the loss and so many of the hurt and so many of the things that happen, these women isn't about their family, you know, [00:48:30] in the same way that that we're made to think it is, you know that these familial and like, sort of patriarchal and the community is like, really oppressing these women. It's actually, you know, it's actually the occupation, for example, in Palestine, which shot my stepmom's brother in front of her when she was 12 years old. You know, that's the most scarring experience of her life. You know, she went on to work in a university, own her own flat and and do her thing. But, you know, that was that's what's jarred her. You know those experiences? Um, because [00:49:00] also, when we're talking about women, I think you know, Ian and Ali touched on this a little bit. We'll always do dehumanising Palestinian manners like these. Sort of like backward, disgusting terrorist. You know, um, like, sexist people. Um, And I think about my dad, and I think about the fact that when my mum and dad divorced, my mum says all the time that when people here she has an Arab last name [00:49:30] and that she was married to a Palestinian, they always say, Oh, that must have been hard. She goes, No, it wasn't. He was a great dad and a great husband, but, you know, he just wasn't the person for me, But they already have this idea about They already have this idea about what my dad is like. They've never been met. They have no idea who he is. But they already have that idea that he is this person, this image that they have in their minds. So that, uh, like a lot of the loss that afflicts women in the Middle East is actually seeing their sons [00:50:00] seeing their partners, seeing their fathers and their brothers, Um, you know, imprisoned Because that is an absolute likelihood. You know, my dad doesn't have a single brother in Palestine that hasn't spent time in prison being tortured and and whatnot, Um or, you know, actually being killed like my stepmom's brother, Or, you know, just not being able to participate the way they want to participate and not being able to move the way they want to move. [00:50:30] And the other thing? The last thing I wanna say is that I think it's interesting, like how much these things kind of infiltrate the way we think and actually affect us here. And I, I really like what, um Ian said about, you know, thinking about the enemy. You know, that we have here because I found it really interesting. We had a friend, uh, a journalist come over from Gaza. A young a young blogger called YF, and he was telling me about the group they run in Gaza. You know where they live under siege, [00:51:00] and it's on Hamas role. We're constantly hearing about how oppressed women in Gaza are. And when you came over here, he came up to the Palestine Conference we had in Auckland and I was witnessing to him the whole time about the absolute lack of representation of women and of Arab women and of women of colour and of men of colour that we had at our conference. And, um, he was talking to me about the group that he is a part of, [00:51:30] um, which is a group of youth, Uh, bloggers, writers, activists, And actually, 80% of them are women. Um, and, you know, they're the ones writing the articles. Uh, they're the ones, um, moving and actually organising so much politically in the youth movements in Gaza. And, um, you know, me and Ali were just remarking how interesting we found out that, you know, we thought we'd come so much further. Yet in our own community, um, you know, we [00:52:00] were struggling to get heard where women in Gaza are, you know, having these groups where basically they set the agenda. Um, so I think that's a really interesting point for reflection. And, um, yeah, that's kind of where I want to end it. And I just want to say for question time that I'm really excited to hear you know, the kind of questions that people have. Although, God forbid, if anybody asks me any questions about the headscarf, then you know like it will be over. Um, we can't have [00:52:30] that. Um, but it is a learning space. And I do, like, acknowledge that, and I and I want to say as well that, you know, like, I'm learning a lot of people here, and I really appreciate being able to come into this space. You know, I'm not a part of the queer community, but I really appreciate I think, you know, tying these things together and just seeing the way that they do, actually, you know, these structures of power, actually often just totally abuse and use, Um, our struggles, you know, be it, like, as Palestinian [00:53:00] women or as queer or as tribes, um, you know, to actually legitimate the fucked up things they do. So, um, that's that's kind of what I wanna say. And I wanna kind of welcome any that people want to have around this stuff and and welcome a kind of like a hard discussion on it, so yeah. Thank you, everybody. Um, I actually [00:53:30] prepared a talk that was meant to be presented last night. Um, on the panel called Fighting Homophobia, transphobia and bigotry in our communities. But, um, given the context of things that happened yesterday and dealing with, um, racism and this white centrism in the queer community. Um, I didn't have the energy to speak at that last night. Um, and I've if I'm hearing stuff [00:54:00] that everyone's been talking about in this panel, I've gonna change the talk a little bit, um, to be more relevant about, um, homo nationalism. And actually, my talk already was touching on that. Um, but maybe more explicitly, um, I'll talk about that today. Um, so I'm also speaking as a member of community council, um, [00:54:30] which is a feminist organisation to end family violence and gender based violence. Um, in Asian Middle Eastern African communities in A. And I'm also speaking as a member of the youth unit. Um, but not everything I say will reflect the views of everyone in the organisation. Um, and I also want to just give a disclaimer that the way I present this talk may not be very coherent, [00:55:00] but that's also deliberate. Um, because I don't think my sexuality culture, um, community or gender is very coherent. So I don't think my speech should be expected to be either, and I think that's OK. um So I kind of took down notes while everyone else was speaking. And I thought it would be good to talk about cultural imperialism is another form of imperialism that happens in queer communities [00:55:30] in, um in terms of cultural domination and is not just a process, but a condition that we live in. Um, particularly as people of colour or, um, indigenous people at that kind of cultural imperialism is quite visible. And, you know, we use categories from Western sexology [00:56:00] from sexual, heterosexual, bisexual, and those categories seem to be applied universally. Um, and I guess the term queer and trans is also, uh, another manifestation of that. Um, and I think that's a really important part to acknowledge in terms of colonisation. Um, initially, I was gonna talk a bit about, um, some of my experiences kind [00:56:30] of coming out to my parents. And also, it's something that I find quite hard to talk about in predominantly queer scenes because of the, um, assumptions that it may play into about the homophobia that happens in Chinese communities particularly, um, but I think I will, because it also illustrates [00:57:00] the complexity of, um, being a migrant on colonised land and the kind of colonisation of consciousness that happens through religion. And, um, whether that kind of framework of justifying homophobia would still be there if you conversion to Christianity didn't happen. So I think for queer and Trans people from Asian Middle [00:57:30] Eastern African backgrounds, not all our cultures are actually homophobic or transphobic necessarily. Um, as there is a lot of diversity in those communities that, um, within each culture and also between them. But I've kind of drawn a lot of strength from connecting with other people. Um, from those backgrounds and from people of colour in general. [00:58:00] Um, have you know, we supported each other through stuff because, like, Queens will never really understand what we go through. And for many of us, coming out isn't always an option or a risk we're willing to take, because the potential of cutting ties with our families is a lot harder. So I can only really talk about my experiences about this. And I had thought [00:58:30] about it for a long time before um, telling my parents that I had a girlfriend and that you know, the kind of back and forth thoughts about Oh, shit. Is this gonna end in family violence or disarmament? Um, but at the end of the day, when I did do that, that didn't happen. Although they were convinced that it's a sin and a mental illness. Um, and they kept [00:59:00] being really confused because they thought there was no homosexual gene in our family. So how could this happen? Um, and they're quite popular, homophobic explanations. And they also blame Shadi, um, for it because working there, you want to see the bad side of heterosexual relationships mainly, Um, and I just think it's something that they didn't really understand. And also, our experience as migrants in Auckland was, um, facing social exclusion and racism as the norm [00:59:30] exacerbated that homophobia because moving to aotearoa, um, they were generally quite socially isolated. And while there were a few families from our hometown, but them not being able to speak English, um made it really hard to find a community that was supportive. So when I was eight or nine, my mom converted to Christianity and kind of made everyone else in the family convert to Christianity. Um, because there were Chinese speaking [01:00:00] churches where you know the ideals of heterosexual marriage as the way God intended things actually made it really hard for my parents to not be homophobic and with sermons advocating against the marriage equality bill. Um, and then kind of like asking me if I wanted to sign the petition. I was like, Oh, God, this is before I came out to them. Um, but then I'm just like, I don't support marriage in general. So, um, but when that bill passed, [01:00:30] you know, I kind of use humour as a way of, like, dealing with this. And I told my mum that, like, I could maybe finally fulfil her wish and get married to my girlfriend. And she was She just looked at me and was like, Don't disgust me. And I laughed because it's actually a joke. I mean, I'm never gonna get married. That's actually quite disgusting. Um, but in migrant communities where it's so small and most people know each other, rumours and gossip can be really alienating. [01:01:00] And there is a lot more at stake for our families, and we're still racist and homophobic context because of this and that colonisation of consciousness through religion. Um, because of migration and social hostility and exclusion from the dominant culture makes it harder for my family, not just for me if I'm out. Um, and as many of the other powers have already talked about this a common perception, [01:01:30] um, that Asian cultures are more conservative and homophobic or transphobic sexist and violent. Um, which, you know then implies that white people from Western Europe or Anglophone colonial settler society are more progressive when it comes to gender relations, sexuality and sexual identity. Um, it it's racist and can really exacerbate homophobia and transphobia in [01:02:00] our communities and for white people to be exploiting these tensions and highlighting that homophobia and transphobia or misogyny or whatever in our community exacerbates racism. So, given the kind of interconnection and entanglement of homophobia and racism and transphobia, um, I think we really need to think about queer liberation, um, in a way that [01:02:30] takes into account all those intersectionality. So I think the dominant ideal of queer liberation is, you know, to be is a really, um, a way of thinking about liberation. And I think que liberation can look quite differently and require different strategies, depending on, um, the different communities that we come from or we associate with. And I don't think it's OK to universalize or centre [01:03:00] of queer entry subjectivity, um, for projects of queer aggression, especially on colonised land. Um, because the now, in that sense, to be liberated often means to assimilate. And that just [01:03:30] encourages those Orientalist discourses and assumptions of Western civilizational and moral superiority. And I don't know if how many people here watch the, um, speeches in Parliament about gay marriage. The amount of times people said New Zealander is as you know, we New Zealanders should not tolerate this and kind of using nationalist, um, language to further co liberation, [01:04:00] which then excludes particular minority groups in the country. And I'd actually like to hear from other people, um, who are people of colour identify as indigenous about this topic, especially around cultural imperialism and racism in our communities, [01:04:30] because I think that's, um, really important to have discussions about this, and I don't think I have all the answers. Can I open it up for discussion? Yeah, I reckon. Like you said, it's quite hard to I like, for me quite hard to like talk about the stuff and like spaces that quite like spaces, I think. Yeah. So it's kind of annoying, So I don't really I do have lots to say about, [01:05:00] but origins into our system. I think I really wanna, um, acknowledge that, um that all my friends and you know, elders who are trained or queer people of colour, Um, here and internationally in our homelands or in dice, Um, colonised lands [01:05:30] have been really important in, um, feeling like, you know, I can exist and I should exist, Um, and that these like transnational connections, the visibility and articulation of migrant and refugee experiences of homophobia and transphobia, despite the risks and dangers involved in those fighting misogyny, homophobia and transphobia in the community, Um, especially in, like, white dominated and queer, um, [01:06:00] and feminist spaces. They are the people that really inspire me. And I think, um, I wouldn't really be able to speak of that. That kind of work hadn't already been done before. I don't have so much, um I identify as a New Zealand and I identify as a New Zealander. My father's a king and my mother's Chinese [01:06:30] boy, and and he said, um, that ancient science, as others can be conservative like I really did identify with that. And it was something I guess I believe. And it just I mean, through through from my mother, I guess sort of picking up on 700 singles and family and that sort of thing. But at the [01:07:00] end of the day, But just why I was saying that when I was actually thinking about it, I was like, Well, actually, at the end of the day, me coming out to my parents, my father was as accept as my mother and perhaps ultimately pets ultimately more, or at least more rigid than it views. Despite her saying at one point, you [01:07:30] know, Chinese culture was very conservative, So yeah, she bought it back, and I brought him to up to a point that perhaps experience, Yeah, I think it's really easy to internalise those ideas. Yeah, so in my head, obviously, we were very good. [01:08:00] I'm gonna sort of point out that thinking about, for example, when he said, um, Asian cultures are seen as even putting The idea of being conservative on South Asian cultures is a form of cultural colonialism. And, um, I just wanted to I think the fact that, like so, like think about culture and think about these relationships. [01:08:30] Yeah, I think even like the category of Asian is like a really broad and problematic one that was invented by Europe and and and one part of the is we we we know about the hetero of our own culture that we know that there isn't a single. There's many parts of it. It's a very contradictory thing. [01:09:00] Um, there is a tendency sometimes to see the other as very homogenous, and we will say, and in that completely different from what we experienced. But there are possibly just as many contradictions and differences and complexities and inequality. Yeah, that's true. I think the, um, issue is that when there are, [01:09:30] um, those tensions in, um, other cultures, it becomes a sort of, like often the kind of like feminist and, like Asian cultures are ignored or, like, not seen as existing. And the the kind of dominant cultures are misogynistic [01:10:00] and like, Yeah, I think those tensions get exploited for racist agendas. I, I think you made, uh But this is a thank you for sharing your story and your perspective because I always take, uh, quite a lot to put out there. So So thank you for that. I guess my comment is I mean, I was [01:10:30] campaign and I made the old submission. But it's one of the things I think that perhaps one of the things I said was one of the things that struck me most about the American government and opposition that that came to to court. I personally thought it was really regrettable. And I thought that the most visible opposition to the the survivors who were protesting and sort of, uh, people were Korean, uh, cheer [01:11:00] papers to me, the most viable people who were as well, so And, uh, um, I thought it was it was really unfortunate, but that was that was the case. Um, I and I do think that, um there are some truths to do that to something. The Chinese, for example. Consider, um, And so I found one of those good things I've had to do is just [01:11:30] too hard to my party of my American party campaign. Even though this is one of the things I find that that was quite difficult and he didn't react very well to it, but, um Yeah, I, I support the I mean the whole race. It's very regrettable. That's that's my point. And I think one thing with that was, um you know, one of the comments that was made around that time was that people who are opposed to this shit go back home and like, did that [01:12:00] include Colin Craig? Yeah, but also you saw from the Labour Party and anyone who knows who knows. I'm not the biggest fan labour party and stuff, but you saw that within that dynamic of the like conservative P I union members are opposed to Robinson because he's gay and it's like, you know, if you actually look at all the research and stuff that's coming out of it and that's what was interesting is that in terms of the research [01:12:30] that's coming out, is that you know, specific PR communities are no more homophobic than communities. But again, and it's like sweet. If you go down to a meeting of 3000 people, you're gonna find 10 conservative people in there that you can get sound like from and present to the P I community and stuff. And so I think that multifaceted and quite deep and com, uh, and complex in that sense in that sense. And I think it's a real a real challenging, really important thing to actually, um, quite those [01:13:00] stereotypes that are quite easy to fall back on. Yeah, I think when white people talk, they're not seen as representing their community. But and and besides, like, you could have you said that 30 years ago, when white culture was just as conservative as any other culture on this question. And I think it is the the the cultures cultures move [01:13:30] very, very quickly. Um, well, the thing is, too. I think that it would never be called. It would never be named as white culture being against marriage equality. It would be people against marriage, marriage, equality. That's how it would be framed to most people, right? It would be, Yeah, people with religious or political views, Not like nothing with, like, a culture with white views. Yeah, and I can make that what you said about, like your family, like a Christian church [01:14:00] and then becoming, you know, like becoming homophobic. That's kind of like the story of lots of places like, you know, like most non white cultures wouldn't be homophobic if they weren't tell us. It's kind of like any bits of and transphobia and stuff is kind of and even just like the the idea that there's like two sexes and two genders and blah, blah blah. You know, that's like white people shit. That's bullshit. And it's kind of like, so anything [01:14:30] that is coming from, you know, from our people as a result of colonisation, you know, as a direct result of colonisation. It's not really our country. It's, you know, it's shit. They're still blamed on us. Do you think that it's almost colonial like, I mean, obviously like there's lots of cultures that didn't that would have to be normative or gender normative, But is Europe the only place in the world that [01:15:00] had that had been exploited to the rest of the world? Not really. Well, I guess I just don't know this content. My culture wasn't like that, you know? Mhm. Certainly, I'd say, even if, um you know, even if that's not precisely the case, the gender and sexuality system that is currently dominant is the one that Europe supported globally, I'd say, but yeah. Oh, I guess I just wanted to [01:15:30] bring up the fact that we mentioned before that it was a really white space, which it totally is. And I was just wondering, I don't know who would be the right person to even answer this question. But, um, would it be appropriate for the last half hour of this to be a discussion among people of colour? And should us White leave and give some space? But I don't know who was the best person to answer that, or even if anyone would want to put themselves out there to answer it. So I just thought it was worth thinking about. There's also a free role, so [01:16:00] I mean, we could like, Yeah, we could have a discussion if we wanted, but it depends on what people think. I think maybe what's important is that people are like, Oh, mhm, yeah, I think that homophobia stuff is something that can be exported [01:16:30] and colonised. But also the strategies of queer liberation can also be exported from, you know, from the US or whatever to other places, and that also needs to be questioned. As you know, like, this panel is better done. I think um, I just don't know, like, I really appreciate that you shared that experience of coming out as well. And, like you said, You know, you often feel that feeling of not wanting to play [01:17:00] into people's assumptions, and that's kind of something I was talking about. And I think that when someone does that in a room, you need to be like, it's like there's a lot of trust involved in that And instead of saying I'm gonna tell you something that might play into your assumptions right now but a lot of knowledge that you're gonna see the complexities in that because I think it's really good if we can have that conversation and say, Look, it is like this and it was like this for me and this might play into this in this assumption. But I want to flesh out a broader argument. [01:17:30] So like, I really appreciate that you you did say that because, you know, I know in my conversations with some of my friends, you know, we sort of say that we don't talk about some of the more successful elements of things that happen within our family within certain groups of people because we know that that immediately will be all well here. So, um, I think just to acknowledge that you did share that, I think is something we should do [01:18:00] in this room, which is kind of, you know, because it does take a lot of trust to sort of say, I'm giving you this information and you do not miss using it, like, do not, um, misconstrue what I'm saying because I've been in situations with, um, you know, Zionists and ex Israeli soldiers, actually, who've been quite liberal and who I've had, like, long conversations with and, you know, quite uncomfortable. These are people who have, you know, been occupying like, literally, like, quite literally, probably [01:18:30] could have thrown tear gas canisters at my family. Or, you know, and so we're talking and we're talking. And then, you know, somehow I fell into the trap of talking about some of my experiences of sexism in the Middle East would be ridiculous. And he just goes, Yeah, see, you know, ultimately, this is a This is the bottom line, isn't it? This is the bottom line for us, [01:19:00] you know. That's why you're you you know you'll never want that. And that's why, ultimately, like, we need to protect Israel and you see why I do the work that I do. And that was it for him, you know, like that was a sealed deal. So I just want to acknowledge that does take a lot of trust to say those things.
This page features computer generated text of the source audio. It may contain errors or omissions, so always listen back to the original media to confirm content.
Tags