For a gay high schooler living in the U.S., it is with extreme difficulty that I watch the American and Israeli governments exploit my sexual identity to excuse ongoing ethnic cleansing.
The Progress Pride Flag was never intended to fly over the corpses of dead Palestinians. Like many queer young people today, I have watched with paralyzing anger as the symbol of our liberation waves atop armed Israeli killing machines and our existence is commodified as justification for Israel’s imperial violence. Israel has no right to wave any flag over the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Yet, for that flag to be colored with a rainbow is illustrative of the settler state’s incorrect, dangerous rationale for carrying out its ongoing genocide.
As Israel and its associated settler colonies market themselves as “gay havens,” they perpetuate the flip side narrative as well—that Palestinians are a barbaric and homophobic population of uncivilized heathens. The narrative itself is anerasure of Palestinian queer life and Israel’s oppression of LGBTQ residents. It ignores that Western colonialism has historically led to worse treatment of LGBTQ minorities in colonized regions. When the British claimed “Mandate Palestine” in 1920, they passed sweeping anti-gay legislation that still governs homosexual relationships in Gaza today. Throughout history, in the name of bringing civilization to Middle Eastern communities, colonialists have criminalized queerness and facilitated queer oppression.
Moreover, Israel itself has punished LGBTQ identities since the state’s birth. The current Netanyahu administration has positionedhomophobicleaders at the peaks of the Israeli government, refuses to legalize gay marriage, and faces rampant rates ofanti-LGBTQ sentiment in the country. Israel cannot be considered a pro-gay force for freedom as it continues the erasure of Palestinian queer life, facilitates an ongoing genocide, and furthers anti-queer lawmaking.
If they think that most of the Middle East didn’t criminalize homosexuality and oppress LGBT folks before European domination, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell them.
Yeah. I’ll give this kid credit as a high school student writing this. But the premise of pink washing is that it is used to divert attention or sway public opinion. That doesn’t have any bearing on facticity of claims. It is possible to call out pinkwashing by Israel and the West and also call out homophobia in middle east society at the same time.
It’s deeply frustrating that such a racist and ethnocentric view of the world dominates even supposedly leftist narratives, in which nothing has ever happened unless Europeans made it happen. To deny the agency of non-Europe originating societies to do evil is still to deny their agency.
My friend, maybe you should do some research before you make assertions so confidently, especially if you’re going to use those assertions to accuse others of being racists or ethnocentrists. I’d recommend the Wikipedia article called LGBT People and Islam, particularly the “History” section of the article. The TLDR is that homosexual practices were accepted and commonplace in the Muslim world during the Islamic Era, although their view of what homosexuality is would be considered lacking by modern standards. In fact, they were so damn gay that they wrote love poems to their male pages and Europeans made fun of them for it. Here’s a quote from Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World:
I am well-aware of same-sex practices in the history of Islam, but the idea that there is one ‘Islamic Era’ with one standard used is fucking absurd. From your own source:
But sure, keep peddling misconceptions because reality is inconvenient.
My friend.
Once again you have made assertions without doing your research.
I said “homosexual practices were accepted and commonplace in the Muslim world during the Islamic Era”
Do some research, learn when the Islamic Era ended according to whichever scholarly consensus you’d like, then count how many years that was before the criminal punishment for homosexuality was specified in Saudi Arabia in 1928.
And also, that’s where your haste has brought you: Saudi Arabia, not Palestine. Muhammad bin Saud’s name should have tipped you off to that. Palestine was created by carving up the Ottoman Empire, so that is the historical culture you must evaluate to make your claim, not Saudi Arabia’s. With that in mind, here’s the very next paragraph after the one you quoted:
This is not a misconception. This is the inconvenient reality. The Ottoman Empire began censoring homosexuality in their culture in the 1850s because of exposure to European society.
And I’m telling you that trying to argue that there was one standard from Gibraltar to the Hindu Kush over the course of hundreds of years of history is utterly divorced from reality.
Do you mean the Islamic Golden Age?
I don’t even know how to respond to this considering the loose legal system of the Saudis and the fact that Saudi Arabia as we know it still did not exist in 1928.
Okay, first, the paragraph notes that it is bin Saud’s endorsement of the Wahhabist movement, which dominated from Damasacus to Baghdad, which is the relevant portion. Second, the culture of the Ottomans is not particularly relevant to the culture of Palestine - the Ottoman Empire was not a nation-state, and Palestinians were sure as shit not culturally Turkish. Third, most areas outside of Anatolia had a great deal of local autonomy to administer laws and punishments, especially in accordance with Islamic law and jurisprudence.
OK and who should I believe, some random dude on the internet saying “trust me bro” or Everett K. Rowson, American scholar and Professor Emeritus of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University? What I said comes straight from his mouth, so if you want to argue that point you’re welcome to send him an email. From his article, “HOMOSEXUALITY IN ISLAMIC LAW” (with further citations available in his bibliography):
That’s the one!
Welp, you’re the one who brought up Muhammad bin Saud, not me. As you quoted, Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab formed an alliance with bin Saud, the emir of the town of Diriyah. The Emirate of Diriyah, also known as the First Arab State, was ruled by bin Saud and later his son until his son was militarily defeated and executed by the Ottomans in 1818-1819. The Al Saud clan and the followers of ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab, however, remained in the same geographical area, and founded the Second Saudi State that lasted from 1824 until 1891, followed by the Third Saudi State in 1902. The Third Saudi State would eventually change its name to “Saudi Arabia”, and it is ruled by the Al Saud clan to this day.
Here are links to maps of the First Saudi State’s territory, the Second Saudi State’s territory, and the Third Saudi State’s territory. You’ll notice that Palestine does not fall within the borders of any of those three maps. Furthermore, I think you might need a reminder on where Damascus and Baghdad are located. Go find both of them on a map, draw a line between the two, and tell me if Palestine is anywhere near the area denoted by that line. Once again, you need to do your research before you post assertions online.
Fair enough. Palestinians are also sure as shit not culturally Saudi Arabian, though, so why do you keep bringing that up? I think the best source about specifically Palestinian history would be from a Palestinian academic. Let’s read an excerpt of an interview with Palestinian scholar and author of Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique, Sa’ed Atshan:
Everett K. Rowson also says that the Quran doesn’t have any rules against homosexuality, something which is easily disproven, so I don’t know that he’s trying to push a wholly honest narrative.
The only reason I brought him up, even in passing, was in quoting from your own source about the rise of Wahhabism and increased application of anti-homosexual Sharia rulings.
Literally the only reference I made to Saudi Arabia was to bin Saud in passing. with no reference to the country, only his support of Wahhabism and its subsequent spread as a response to you bringing up Saudi Arabia.
My God, do I have to fucking explain to you the use of geographical comparisons in English?
We’re done here.
Oh thank god
I don’t think anyone believes there aren’t a lot of gays in the Middle-East. The argument is that they get executed when they are caught
Oh yeah, no doubt about that. The point that I’m attempting to make is that the Middle East was not always that way
Your supposed narrative of the entire middle east throwing gays off buildings ISIS style for centuries is not representative of reality.
Ask Iran how much Western coups helped them go from their 1953 Democracy to the liberal secular state it is now
And where the fuck did I say that?
What the fuck does that have to do with the pre-European Middle East criminalizing homosexuality?
I’m sorry your comment totally didn’t 100% imply that. Good that you corrected me there with plausible deniability.
Iran was becoming more secularized and “Western” until their government was overthrown in 1953 and AGAIN in 1979 for not giving free oil to Britain and America.
LGBT stuff in the West was stigmatized until like 20 years ago and you’re out here criticizing governments from 70 years ago for not being progressive enough.
1950’s was when America was just getting rid of their Jim Crow apartheids laws.
Your argument is just presentism
My argument… disputing that homophobia and homophobic laws in the Middle East originated from European influence… is presentism.
Okay. You have fun with that.
None of your arguments surrounding Iran are even vaguely relevant.
You’re saying that the new laws under British colonialism are not relevant. From the article:
If you look up Iran before 1950 the capital was starting to Westernize. You’re implying that the West had amazing gay rights during the 1950’s while America didn’t even have Gay Marriage until 2004.
And after America coup’d Iran’s regime with operation Ajax, Iran becomes super progressive… And then in 1979 America overthrew Iran again (probably for still being too regressive on gay rights) and installed Ayatollah Khomeini. Another massive success for gay rights under American imperialism!
Yes, because, unlike the author of the piece, who can be forgiven for being a high schooler, I recognize that the laws being referenced in this case under British colonial rule were new only in wording. The Ottomans before them, as well as regional authorities in Palestine, had plenty of laws used as cudgels against the LGBT community. The British also implemented laws against stealing; that doesn’t mean that the British fucking brought the idea of personal property to the Middle East.
Fucking what.
Where do I imply that the West had amazing gay rights before 2004? Where do I reference the gay rights situation of the West positively at all in my argument?
Oh my bad I thought your argument was supposed to be relevant to anything ever.
Rich, considering you’ve went on a multi-comment rant about Iran that has nothing to do with anything anyone brought up, while I’m still discussing the point that I initially commented on - the relevance of British colonial law to homophobia in the Middle East.
This is exactly the kind of whataboutism the article is about. Be better.
Fucking what? How is that a whataboutism at all?
Article: colonialism historically criminalizes queerness
You: oh yeah? What about the people who were there BEFORE the colonialism criminalizing queerness? Your argument is invalid!
It really doesn’t get much more textbook whataboutism than that.
But this is kind of a criticism of responding to what aboutism with what aboutism. Both sides were historically anti queer in both similar and different ways.
Not really, no. It’s not whataboutism to point out that a whataboutism argument is illogical and that said illogical argument is being used to excuse atrocities.
People are being killed at a large scale, the aggressor is pink washing using a what aboutism about those people’s track record on gay rights, and this article doing a what aboutism about israel and the west’s gay rights track record. The headline is about genocide. But the content of the article is just trying to make an argument about which side has the better gay rights track record. I don’t think any body is actually arguing, or believing an israel argument, that this war is justified because israel is supposedly kinder to gay people than palestine.
Yeah they are. I’ve been in arguments with Israel apologists using that exact argument to say that the genocide is ok because Hamas bad literally dozens of times.
Article: [Accuses colonialism of bringing the criminalization of queerness to the Middle East]
Me: “That’s literally not true”
That’s not a whataboutism. That’s disputing a fact. A whataboutism would be “Oh yeah? Well the Middle East was doing it too, therefore Europe’s colonial homophobia was okay!” or, if you prefer, “Oh yeah? Europe was homophobic? Well, what about the Middle East’s homophobia?”
I’m not saying Europe was okay. I’m not saying the Middle East was exceptionally awful. I’m not trying to justify Europe’s colonial homophobia. I’m saying blame for homophobia being laid at the feet of colonizers in the Middle East is absurd. They have enough crimes to answer for without making more up.
And I’m not even addressing the main thrust of the article, which I agree with.
Which is exactly the problem and exactly what makes it a whataboutism: rather than engage with the actual pertinent points of the article, you choose to nitpick a largely irrelevant detail in such a manner as to distract in exactly the same manner as someone trying to dismiss the whole thing based on that detail.
You have an awfully odd way showing it, then…
… that’s not what a whataboutism is. A whataboutism isn’t when someone gets caught up on a detail. JFC.
If someone, in the middle of an article I otherwise found anodyne and agreeable, said “Just like the British brought prosperity to Africa by building roads and hospitals”, I would find myself in the comments section to dispute that shit as well. I’m not here in the comments section because the article bothered or pleased me; I agree with it, but have no urge to make a comment on the article itself. I’m here because a detail which pushes a very inaccurate and eurocentric narrative is being spread, and I would rather like it if it wasn’t.
I give up. You clearly are incapable of understanding what I’m explaining to you.
Have the day you deserve.
I don’t think that was called for.
It might help if the core of your argument, an accusation of whataboutism, was actually at all related to the concept of a whataboutism.
I don’t have a dog in this fight, but if queerness was criminalized before colonialism and queerness was criminalized after, that would seem to invalidate the idea that colonialism was responsible.
I’m just reading what you are saying and interpreting it through my own ignorance of queer history save for the last 50 years or so I’ve seen with my own eyes.
It’s also really hard to follow what people are actually saying vs. the words being assigned to them for rhetorical purposes to manufacture the argument another person wants to have. Social media really is the worst form of communication.
That’s only half of the picture, though. The point that the article is making isn’t that colonialism brought anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment to the middle east. It’s that colonialism is generally anti-LGBTQ+ whether or not the area was already and as such, the argument that the colonialists are better because they’re not anti-LGBTQ+ is empty propaganda.
Or put in words already in the very headline of the article: pinkwashing genocide.