2012 ILGA conference for Sydney

The Asian and Pacific branches of the International Lesbian & Gay Association (ILGA) will hold a joint conference in Sydney during 2012, and it may form part of that year’s Mardi Gras festival.

The conference location was recently announced at the ILGA World Conference in the city of Sao Paulo in Brazil.

ILGA Australia New Zealand & Pacific Islands (ANZAPI) representative Simon Margan, who was reappointed to the role by the ILGA board at the conference, said part of the reason why Sydney was chosen was to give ILGA Asia members a safe place to meet after their 2010 conference in Surabaya in Indonesia was forced to shut early in March.

“What happened was some Islamic extremists got wind of the conference and they blockaded the hotel,” Margan told the Star Observer.

“In the end they actually came into the hotel demanding the conference be closed down and that conference attendees leave the country — so for the safety of the participants they had to close that conference down.

“I think the ILGA member organisations are wanting to have a conference that goes smoothly this time to encourage members that it is ok to have conferences in the Asia Pacific region.

“ILGA Asia need to sit down and talk because they didn’t get much of an opportunity at Surabaya and so this will be a fantastic opportunity.”

Margan said he had originally begun discussions with New Mardi Gras (NMG) in relation to a bid for the ILGA World Conference. But after Australia lost that bid to Sweden the idea for a joint ILGA Asia, ILGA ANZAPI conference came up.

“We’ve talked with New Mardi Gras about the conference and we do intend to fit the conference into the Mardi Gras festival schedule so we hope to actually integrate it with one of their events,” he said.

NMG CEO Michael Rolik confirmed the meetings with ILGA and told the Star Observer he thought the conference would be a good fit with the festival’s Queer Thinking event.

“We were invited to support the bid for the ILGA International conference, which we were pleased to do,” Rolik said.

“We engaged with them in a series of fruitful and constructive meetings and now hope to work with them on the Asia Pacific ILGA conference as part of our fabulous Queer Thinking event in 2012.”

This year’s Queer Thinking, on February 19, will see speakers take to the stage including British activist Peter Tatchell, University of Chicago English professor Lauren Berlant, feminist author Judith ‘Jack’ Halberstam, and playwrights Lachlan Philpott and Tommy Murphy.