Time to be counted

I find it hard to believe that it’s the week of the Mardi Gras parade and party, yet I’m not getting ready for it. For the first time in 26 Mardi Gras seasons, I am going to be elsewhere due to other commitments. Will I cope? Will Mardi Gras survive without me? At least I achieved a personal milestone that I’m proud of -“ 25 successive Mardi Gras parades and parties.

In earlier years, I had a policy of one year in the parade; next year watching. That in consisted of being in or on floats, marching groups (S.M.A.R.T., Dyke van Dykes on Bikes amongst others) and/ or marshalling. As a member of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Choir, I once got to be on stage and close the party. In 1983-84, I was on the Mardi Gras committee, as it was before it all went corporate. So I’ve always felt that Mardi Gras was mine.

I’ve only left one party before it closed (19 February 1983) because I was weirdly ill. In retrospect, I became aware that it marked the beginning of my seroconversion illness. Not too many people get to pinpoint the actual date they became HIV-positive. At every other party, I’ve been there until the announcer says, Okay. You can all piss off now. In recent years -“ the last 15 or so -“ I’ve had the pleasure of being a volunteer in the Time-Out Room, a place for HIV+ partygoers to chill for a moment or 50. It’s not only an important resource for the health of positive people, but also a great place for old friends to meet up again -“ sometimes the only opportunity they/ I’ve had to see people from one party to the next.

It has almost become Mardi Gras tradition for people to whinge in the letters pages beforehand about what had better happen or they won’t be coming again. Or to whinge after it’s all over about what went wrong and why they won’t be coming again. So -“ as a Mardi Gras veteran -“ I want to have my say.

Many of my friends no longer go to Mardi Gras parades. Many more of them no longer go to the party. All for a variety of good (for them) reasons. I’m always disappointed that they won’t be there with me, but I usually respect their decisions. (But sometimes they do get an oh, puhleeeze!) However, I’ve always felt compelled to go, to be there, to be counted.

Perhaps it’s because I’ve known some of the 78ers and remember the bad old days when we were an illegal minority. Perhaps because I remember the energy, the passion, the absolute necessity to get out there and be in the faces of all those who wished we would just go away. Not to mention the sheer joy of being able to just party full-on in the street and at the party. We were family and we were visible. That was a tremendously powerful feeling that no-one and nothing could take away from us -“ except ourselves.

And that seems to be what’s happening. Is our community starting to haemorrhage from within? Maybe. Do we not care about each other any more? Maybe. Are our needs in 2007 different from what they were in the 1980s? Very probably.

However, it’s my opinion we need Mardi Gras. Not just for Sydney’s GLBT community and not just for Australia’s GLBT community, but as an internationally respected and cherished festival that keeps reminding all those naysayers we won’t go away and we are here to stay. As a First World nation, we are in a privileged position to enable struggling GLBT communities worldwide to continue their fights to achieve in their own communities what we have achieved in ours. Or don’t we care about gay men being hanged in public and lesbians being stoned to death in less fortunate societies than ours? Or about HIV-positive GLBTs being shunned and abandoned? To Mardi Gras or not to Mardi Gras shouldn’t be about whether the music is to our particular taste or not -“ move to another pavilion and dance there. Better still, take a few moments of time out and chat to a stranger (as opposed to cruising a stranger -“ but do that too). I wish I had a dance track for every time in the last 25 years I’ve had someone tell me, I wish it was like this where I come from.

And if you think we don’t have a duty to do this, then consider for a moment just where your lives would be if not for the millions of hours over the last quarter-century-plus of hard work, passion, belief and dedication that thousands upon thousands of volunteers and activists have expended in the fight to get you the right to parade/ party if you so choose. When I see a pair of young lovers (of GLBT persuasion) wandering down the street holding hands with nary a thought that it might not have been acceptable in the not-too-distant past, I feel a sense of pride. I helped them be able to do that. I don’t care what sort of music they like to dance to, what their tastes are, who their friends are, nor even that I’m an old gay bloke they wouldn’t want to spend time with, let alone be cruised by. All I care about is that they can be themselves as they see fit.

So this old bloke says to all you younger things, Mardi Gras belongs to you, whether you like it or not. You have been passed a hard-won beautiful gift. What you make of it, how you tinker with it, how you craft its future is up to you. So stop bitching at The Machine and start being part of its structure, rather than simply a consumer of its product. That Mardi Gras is now corporate matters little. Get involved; effect change from within if you don’t like the direction it’s going. If you allow it to die or stagnate, then future generations will blame you (and with reason) when they find their rights and lifestyles eroded. And if you do turn your backs on the essence of community that Mardi Gras evokes, you will see the effect of that way too soon.

I’ve turned into my WW2 soldier father when I say, The price of victory is eternal vigilance. Having fought in my own war on two fronts (gay rights and HIV/AIDS), I feel entitled to do so.

Mardi Gras belongs to me. Unfortunately, I won’t be there, so I expect you all to take good care of it, to treat it with unholy respect free from guilt and to party on until the announcer tells you it’s time to go recover. Above all -“ don’t whinge! Just celebrate!

And look after it.