The last weekend
was busy Manchester Pride and Political Pride were both running at the same
time not to mention the numerous events around the city. It is lovely to see
everyone making the most of the last of summer.
While Manchester
Pride was the centre of the city Political Pride was more restrained and
certainly focused on the LGBTQIA community. A month before Manchester Pride
shops had rainbow flags everywhere. The very same organisations that have have
been pulled up in recent years for mistreatment of workers of all sexualities.
This alignment with a fringe movement would seem contradictory but it is not.
As one friend remarked Pride has become a family event full of rainbows where
you can take your children to wave at gay people who will wave back. We have
forgotten how this is a same community that was going to unleash the
destruction of the family and morality. Rainbows are bright, cheerful and non-threatening.
You can pick up a bag of British carrots and potatoes in a shop full of rainbow
flags.
This is where
the change lies the community that was once dangerous has now been
domesticated. It has been given the same moral institutions that heterosexual
individuals are expected to enter into- marriage. Marriage is the one
institution that carries with it not only a gendered patriarchal expectation
but also a nationalistic one. Gay weddings are not only good for business but also
good for the national image. Gay marriage is now seen as one of the last
bastions of liberation. It plays on the idea that by offering the LGBTQIA
community the same ‘privileges’ as heterosexual couples equality has been
achieved. It plays into the idea it is so much better out here than anywhere
else where gay people are murdered.
The problem with
this comparison is that it puts across a crude idea of queer liberation through
the framework of national identity. Isn’t that how the right plays the
immigration debate, eroding British values, their liberalism interfering with
our liberal society. Needless to say we won’t be seeing a black liberation
march meet such acceptance anytime soon. Pride events have come to pit one
issue against another. Homosexuality is pitted against race and immigration. The
apparent liberation of the LGBTQIA community is seen as a benchmark of
civilisation. Is it any surprise then that this argument is used in the LGBTQIA
community. In the few years I have lived here I have been told to be grateful,
or asked why my country or community are homophobic. Some even going as far to
say well black people have been through so much why are they so homophobic?
Then of course is the other side of this propaganda black people and immigrants
have it so good however being LGBTQIA is still looked down upon.
Queerness has acquired
nationality in its fight for liberation. It is both a mark of liberation and
national degradation. However this is not an idea that is alien to nationalism.
Anne McClintock claims that all nationalisms are gendered and dangerous. Taking
this argument forward it would be appropriate to say nationalism is gendered
and heterosexual. Since the link between women as reproducers of culture
symbolically and literally signifies the strength of the nation its obvious
sexuality must also be mentioned. Given the strong connection family plays in
nationalism is it any surprise that heterosexual women who fail in this
expectation are immediately classified as lesbians. Similar fears exist around
feminists of all sexualities whose claims are often thought of as damaging
family life.
While Britain is
going through a phase where gay rights are more accepted the same cannot be
said for other nations that have recriminalised homosexuality. I will stress on
the word recriminalised here because it is often imagined that the history of
homosexuality in the global south has been a monolith since Independence. Recriminalising homosexuality has much
to do with nationalism, as it has to do with the resurgence of religious and
political extremism. Take for example Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code which became an
issue in the general election of 2014. Both sides of the debate focused very
little on the present but went back to the glorious past. The liberal side
arguing that our history has had a liberal interpretation of sexual identity
which has only just been destroyed through colonisation. The counter argument
that is put forward is that Indian values have been eroded in the recent
colonial past and sexual morality must be restored. Both sides harp on the past
and both do little for the LGBTQIA community in the present.
It is the
liberal side of the argument that is picked up by LGBTQIA activists in the west
Britain included. While the role of colonialism cannot be negated to insist
that the former colonial subject is still reeling under cultural trauma denies
agency and panders to homophobia. Recriminalising homosexuality in this moment
of time comes as no surprise, at a time when censorship and violent opposition
to anything perceived as non-Indian exist homosexuality is one of the many
casualties.
History is used
as a political tool to justify social exclusion. Indian history in particular
has a way of making inroads into political, scientific, cultural discussion. We
are both a liberal and conservative nation at the same time when it suits us.
Nationality plays a role in how we view all kinds of issues. What I mean by
this is that history is invoked to justify the problems of the present. Take
for instance the homosexuality debate where a few random moments and exceptions
in history are used as an argument. Invoking history does little for a community
that lives precariously on the margins. However it is not all bad as there is
still space for gay marriage in India, while homosexual activity is
criminalised the law does not ban gay marriages, loophole that came under
scrutiny in recent months. As in the west this was met with exhilaration,
however it was short lived. The
gentleman in question and his mother put out a matrimonial advert which like
the millions of adverts in Indian newspapers demanded ‘a boy of an upper caste
background’. As in the west this
did not challenge the status quo but affirmed it.
The most
exhilarating thing queerness can do in light of these changes is to queer
gendered heterosexualised notions of the society it lives in. While it is
wonderful that the law now accepts gay marriage it should not turn into the end
of the discussion. Queerness at
the heart of it has the potential to challenge troubling ideas of nationality,
gender, sexuality, race and class.
