Gay Arabs won’t march in parade

Gay Arabs won’t march in parade

Queer Arab group Beit el Hob will not march in Saturday’s Mardi Gras parade.

Official suggestions for parade participants, under the theme Nations United, included dressing up as the national flag or other iconic imagery of countries they closely identify with, which Beit el Hob spokesman Nassim Arrage feared would be harmful to many from areas of conflict.

While we welcome the idea behind this year’s Mardi Gras theme, we’re really uncomfortable and concerned with the nationalistic agenda and overtones, he told Sydney Star Observer.

The use of flags in Australia is a highly political and contentious one. There’s this nationalism that is going on that doesn’t recognise that it’s actually alienating, or what celebrating nationality might mean to a queer Arab in the context of the world after 9/11 and anti-terrorism laws.

Beit el Hob raised its concerns with NMG, but had their requests for a pre-parade cultural sensitivity briefing rejected. For us as queer Arabs, that’s a dangerous area for us to go into, Arrage said.

We organise under the words -˜queer Arabs’ to avoid geopolitical issues, to try and bring our commonalities together rather than the things that would tear us apart.

The soundtrack for parody float Surry Hillsong will overlay the Islamic call to prayer with a Jewish spiritual song Avinu Malkeinu, alongside mixes featuring Dr Martin Luther King, gospel music, Hindu chants, Baptist preachings and Jedi.

Surry Hillsong organiser Ethel Yarwood said the float was intended to cause controversy.

NMG spokesman Damien Eames said they were disappointed Beit el Hob had decided not to participate this year, and rejected the idea the theme was potentially divisive.

This weekend you will see that there are is a huge variety of themes being expressed by parade entrants. Some fit clearly with Nations United. Some have nothing to do with it. It is ultimately up to parade entrants what they choose to do, he said.

Certainly from reading through descriptions of parade entrants there is a very positive emphasis on multiculturalism and diversity.

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57 responses to “Gay Arabs won’t march in parade”

  1. i think mardi gras should have gone to the cultural sensitivity meeting. Wouldn’t have hurt – they might have learnt something. I’m sure there could have been some consensus reached on an appropriate parade entry without a lot of nationalistic flags.

  2. Shayne, no-one is “forcing” anyone to march under any flags. There are plenty of floats that have nothing to do with the theme.

  3. On reading these posts, there really is no question in my (white priveleged) mind that Mardi Gras has actually done the wrong thing – and I think any reasonable individual (regardless of their background) would recognise this.

    What I am wondering today is: how else do we express all of these ideas to the to the wider community? It’s a total f%#&ing bummer that the hundreds of thousands of partygoers and TV viewers won’t hear any of these ideas without the full support of the Mardi Gras “establishment” this weekend.

    Other than just not turning up tomorrow, what is a slacktivist like me going to do about it?

    (no really – any ideas? …anyone? bueller?)

  4. I think the boycott here does more damage to their constituents i.e. – gay arabs than address any cultural sensitivity issues in the Mardi Gras Parade. Yes – the theme is a little lame and obnoxious (Nations United, really?), but to punish gay and lesbian arabs who will probably come to the parade to see if there are people like them in the gay community says a lot more about the narrowness of the political debate on nationalism by some of these ivory tower academics than actually advance any practical political engagement on the issue.

  5. I have to admit I was a little confused by the issues here. I understand that, contrary to mainstream belief, Arabs are diverse tribes, there are Arab Christians, Arab Jews etc., as well as the usual ethnicities with which our more ignorant culture normally associates the cliches, ‘of middle Eastern appearance’ and ‘terrorist.’

    I imagine that Beit el Hob would prefer to march as simply ‘gay Arabs’ and not be forced back into those racial divides that are so problematic in their homelands. As a caucasian, I certainly always feel very uncomfortable with any kind of chauvinistic flag waving, being Australian simply indicates my geographical position in the world, not any superior quality. So gawd knows how intimidating it would be for Arabs to have to march amid a whole pageant of such jingoism, especially considering the extreme prejudice that the Bush – Howard years generated in scapegoating them.

    For me, I’d have thought ‘Nations United’ meant marching under ONE flag.

  6. “White privilege” “racist” “middle class” and a meeting of a collective in Newtown on a Friday night…sounds like third year in Political Economy at Sydney University.

    All that is missing is a consciousness raising workshop -but we do have the call for ‘compulsory cultural sensitivity training’…can we bring back Simone Troy to lead them?

  7. Congratulations to Beit el Hob for taking this stand.

    It highlights the issue that nobody seems to want to talk about – namely the way racialised and cultural differences continue to pervade ‘the community.’

    Its no secret that Australia is a country strongly shaped by racism and cultural exclusion: we have a history of invasion and genocide towards Indigenous people, we have had a white Australia policy that was in operation until the early 1970s that has sharply shaped attitudes of what it means to be Australian. And the last decade of Australian politics – including our refugee policies and Cronulla – can hardly demonstrate that Australia has overcome its past.

    And since 9/11, Australia has become involved in armed conflicts, and the associated rhetoric of war, that has alienated many people, and increased racism and Islamaphobia in the everyday life of many communities.

    Why should we pretend that the Sydney GLBTQ community is above all this?

    The aim of mardi gras should be welcome and hospitality. Yet frequently the activities, symbols and imagery of the community simply alienate people, and worse: perpetuate forms racialised domination that have historically been part of Australia’s past, and continue to this day, even in the GLBTQ community.

    It is well and truly time for discussion on how we might make this community a home for all.

  8. Clearly MG are engaged in some political engagement here – and the fact their is disagreement is testament to the health of that debate (how boring if everyone agreed!).

    Sadly some of the postings have all the posturing of student politics…and the accusation of racism is as pitiful as it is wrong.

    On Saturday night, grab your flag, dip it in hot pink and wave it side by side with the rainbow flag.

  9. Adam,
    There is actually a collective examining white privilege in the queer community – but it’s not in Glebe – it’s in Newtown at New Q Gallery on Enmore Road, and they meet tonight.

    I agree with Ghassan and others – that at the moment, in Australia – flag waving is really really problematic – and strongly associated with scary Arab-bashing bogans. Desire and sexuality have no nation, and should be elabrated as forces that defy yucky boundaries of race, class and convention.

    I don’t think that ‘deep thinking’ should be confined to University tutorials – but belongs on the streets, and can be part of the way people dance and fuck and celebrate with style, passion and compassion.

    Mardis Gras will only stay vibrant and interesting if it can retain some flexibility and capacity to engage serious social critique, and creative political passion. Political engagement, sensitivity and solidarity are not boring, but shallow twinky monocultures ARE boring as well as shortlived.

    have a great weekend everyone, and happy mardis gras

  10. This debate makes me sigh alot.*sigh*

    Acceptance, inclusion and diversity and the building of true community means having conversations and engaging. It means being big enough to recognise your privileges, acknowledge it, and then ask the questions of people who should be talked to. In this case queer people of colour.

    I think Mardi Gras are probably trying to address issues of diversity. However it has come from a place of privilege and lack of true understanding as to how racism impacts people of colour. Which is incredibly ignorant.. and at the end of the day is racist. They have really just re-instated relationships based on power, and asserted their dominance within white australia.

    p.s Adam.. can you really call the parade a protest now??

  11. I read with some interest this article, and I’m not sure what my reaction is to be honest. I suppose, as an Arab Australian, I feel some sympathy with the feeling that national flags can be used as really aggressive and dividing symbols. I still remember what it felt like on the day of the Cronulla riots (and Australia day in Manly this year). On the day after the Cronulla riots, I remember walking through the city. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so afraid walking through Sydney (like walking through certain places as a gay man) or feeling like I didn’t belong anywhere.

    This season could have been a great opportunity to have had a meaningful engagement about ethnicity, culture and sexuality beyond the usual, “It’s so bad in non-Western cultures for gays, look how good we are in the West”.

    I contribute a lot to the GLBT community through my work, so I do appreciate the enormous amount of work that goes on to put on a festival – and it is usually thanklessly. So thank you to the volunteers – you often hear the criticisms, not the praise.

    But on issues of ethnicity and sexuality, I think it is important to have a conservation about this in our community – and not just among New Mardi Gras. This is an issue for all of us to consider.

  12. Rachel, 136 floats and only one boycott tells you the majority of the community accepts the theme.

    Your call for “education, deep thinking and action” is fine for a university tutorial or a Glebe based collective.

    But this is a gay and lesbian parade and protest.

    Good on MG for recognising Australia is made up people from elsewhere…and the homosexuals in that community.

  13. P.S. I personally am put off by marching in the parade because of a requirement to metaphorically drape myself in a flag. There is a ‘femme power’ float which is a great idea (femmes in big skirts taking up space) but unfortunately their idea has been compromised by having to accept an ‘Americana’ theme to get permission to march. My response to that, frankly, is f*ck off MG.

  14. Adam,
    Who is ‘the vast majority’? How do you know they’re ‘okay’ with the parade theme? And anyway, who says ‘okay’ is good enough?
    Labelling a serious comment on an important discussion a ‘tantie’ is trivialising and, frankly, makes you sound ignorant.
    Nicole’s outrage is clearly not her own. In fact, the vast majority of coherent and well-articulated voices expressed here in in agreement with hers.
    The whole point here is that ‘respect’ and ‘tolerance’ are not simple words to be thrown about with a cocktail in your hand while you cringe at unfashionable discussion; they require education, deep thinking and action.

  15. I find it amazing that so many new people have crawled out of the woodwork to voice their opinion on this issue on this site. They don’t seem to comment on other issues on this site that affect the “broader queer community” perhaps they only seem to care about issues that personally affect them. (It’s almost like they have called in the troops to win the argument by pure numbers).

    And Leila, the “Aryan” isn’t “fucking the globe” in the paper, he’s holding it to his crotch because it’s how we use our genitals that people have a problem with. And if you think that every blond person is an “Aryan” then that says more about you not about the design.

    Personally I’m glad that whingers like these people won’t be a part of the parade. As David Eames said, some of the floats are going with the theme and others aren’t. The choice is yours. I hope you choose to never be a part of the parade again, because you seem ungrateful for all the effort NMG volunteers have put in to put this festival on for all of us, and seem to get your knickers in a knot over an issue that doesn’t need to be an issue for you because no-one is expecting you to wave whatever flags you think aren’t appropriate.

    Happy Mardi Gras!

  16. It seems the vast majority of people are okay with the parade theme…and some are not.

    Thus is it always so. But don’t have a tantie about it.

    My take on the theme? Regardless of where we are from, homosexuality is a battle for acceptance.

    As someone from a minority (Nicole, your outrage is all your own), I reflect on the tension of what is closest to my identity – ethnicity or sexuality.

    Ss for compulsory cultural sensitivity lectures for people on the night – what a cringeworthy exercise that would be.

    How ’bout just respect and tolerance for each other, including the people we disagree with. Covers everything doesn’t it?

  17. NMG are being very narrow-sighted. I agree with Nassim’s comments and I am a white Aussie, born and bred. Check your privilege, queers of Australia! This issue for queer Arabs is not remotely the same as for people from the continents of Asia or Europe. Nassim is right to point out that post-911, we live in a very anti-Arab world and unfortunately Beit el Hob has good reason to be concerned for the safety of their participants. Excuse me, but have you all forgotten how Australia Day this year became an excuse to drape yourself in the Anglo-Aussie flag and go around bashing non-white people and expressing anti-immigrant sentiments?
    NMG is being both naive and obnoxious by choosing this theme. I hope they do better next year and actually aim towards inclusion rather than division.

  18. The most significant issue here is Mardi Gras’ failure as an organisation to genuinely reflect the diversity of our GLBTQ communities.

    What was the intention behind the theme ‘Nations United’? New Mardi Gras Chair David Imrie in his welcome message in the festival guide isn’t able to give us any context for the theme except to make reference to “far-flung lands where people like us simply aren’t tolerated”.

    In the festival guide the culturally diverse events come from independent artists and promoters, not from New Mardi Gras.

    Mardi Gras’ wants “ethnics” to represent their home countries with a “national costume and a flag at minimum” in the parade. Did anyone bother to ask us? No.

    As a woman of colour I am absolutely sick and tired of this shameful tokenism, racism and disrespect. It’s 2009, why do we still need to be having these discussions!? I am exhausted and I refuse to continue to have to educate the dominant culture.

    I want to be part of a community and a queer movement that is about mutual respect, one that is genuinely inclusive, respectful and accepting of diversity. A community that can challenge its own privileges in whatever form they may come. I want to march in the parade ON MY OWN TERMS!

    Wake up and smell the ahweh Mardi Gras.

  19. There might be only a Tiny sector of the community who will have issues with all the flag waving hullabaloo… but in this day and age, how do we expect minorities to be treated?

    I’m with “Panagioti” — it seems to me that the request for a cultural sensitivity briefing was not asking too much. It’s a shame it won’t be included.

    However, I am pretty confident that this community of individuals is capable of embracing and supporting one simple idea: Happy Mardi Gras to All.

  20. Don’t get your knickers in a knot, John.
    New Mardi Gras will continue to provide an opportunity for you and anyone else who likes to blithely wave coloured flags around, all empowerfulized because you can walk down a street with council and police approval. Concerns about community inclusion and cultural sensitivity (as Beit el Hob have raised) don’t matter one jot, because the whole exercise is about having a party, and it’s obviously too hard for the NMG board to consider their own social and cultural privileges.

  21. oh yes, international envoys and ambassadors, millions of dollars in aide and countless international interventions can’t solve this international conflict, but Mardi Gras can solve these problems just like that??!?? I suppose they need to stop the polar ice caps from melting and shore up our economy too! Geez, you wonder why people even bother trying to be inclusive when all they get back is venom!!!

  22. Don’t worry Mardi Gras, as long as your white middle class senstivities are not offended by the critique of others you can employ any concept as a Mardi Gras theme, dress it up as tolerant liberal cosmopolitism and presto all is good…not. If you can’t seriously engage with people’s concerns around nationalism (post s11 or not) then you’ve well and truly lost me.

  23. Oh come one Kaz, there are plenty of ethnic groups who have no problem with the theme nor with Mardi Gras. Just because one group has a problem with it, don’t tain Mardi Gras as “not listening or talking” with groups. Wasn’t this the same group that got into a letter writing stoush in with a jewish group in the SSO after the parade last year? Some people just like to cause a fuss and stubbornly hold onto their point of view, whilst others just get on with life and agree to live and let live.

  24. this weeks souvenir poster depicting an aryanlike supermale ‘fucking’ the globe is the exact reason why its important for the community to forums such a pre-parade cultural sensitivity brief.

  25. I think NMG needs to listen to a group of people when they say something is offensive. There is a lack of cultural competency when it comes to dealing with minority groups. John is wrong, the point of Mardi Gras is to make all the groups feel like they are included.

  26. Though it would be lovely if every person felt comfortable in the apolitical multicultural “small world” vibe of the parade, current geopolitics do not allow for this to be true, with some nationalities dubbed as “dangerous” and others “benign”. The point is that the queer Arab community represented by Beit el Hob expressed clearly that they did not feel the parade committee had fully though out the potential meanings and ramifications of this year’s theme. Honoring their request for awareness training would have shown an openness of the larger queer community to incorporate and respect the experiences of ALL its members. It is unfortunate that this opportunity was not embraced.

  27. I think it’s sad that Mardi Gras won’t listen or talk to ethnic groups about the parade. Isn’t it supposed to be Nations United? What about being respectful?

  28. Don’t worry Mardi Gras, you can never ever please everybody all of the time! If the Asian Marching boys don’t have a problem with this (as well as countless other cultural groups) then you are on the right path. Happy Mardi Gras!!