The Toronto Mayor’s executive committee has approved a motion that the annual city grant to Toronto LGBT Pride should not be used to fund the parade. The move came after some city councillors had previously asked for a ban on the group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) marching in the parade and for Toronto Pride to ban the use of the phrase “Israeli apartheid.” The Pride organisers refused both demands on freedom of expression grounds. The executive committee decision will now go to the full council for approval. See this report in Xtra!: bit.ly/112E1FG Pride Toronto gets approximately $123,000 from the city in the form of a cultural grant, which, in any case, is not used to finance the parade. PTF Director Peter Tatchell writes: I am amazed that in a supposedly liberal democracy like Canada the country’s main LGBT Pride parade can be bullied because some councillors disagree with one organisation and one slogan. Their demands are straightforward censorship. It’s a direct attack on free speech and the right to protest - and, some people might say, borderline blackmail. Pride parades should be open to all individuals and organisations that support LGBT human rights. There should be no political vetting, unless the participants are homophobic, incite violence or oppose the human rights of others. Lots of people may disagree with QuAIA and even find their rhetoric offensive. But in a democracy they have as much right to free speech as pro-Israeli groups. The main issue is not whether QuAIA is justified in its criticisms of Israeli policy but whether it has a right to freedom of expression. QuAIA does not support violence against Jews or Israelis. It is merely protesting against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories and the abusive, humiliating subjugation of the Palestinian people by Israeli soldiers and extremist settlers. This occupation and mistreatment hurts both straight and LGBT Palestinians, which makes it a legitimate concern for LGBT people everywhere who care for universal human rights. I was proud to march with Queers Against Israeli Apartheid in the 2011 New York LGBT Pride parade. I found them passionate, idealistic and humanitarian. There were no anti-Semitic chants. They want a homeland for the Palestinians. They support a just cause: the human rights of LGBT and straight Palestinians. Although many people find the apartheid accusation offensive, in the occupied territories Israel has an apartheid-style system of separate settlements and separate roads for Jews and non-Jews. Palestinians have their own segregated check-points and border-crossings. While pro-Israelis reject the apartheid analogy, it has been echoed by the Nobel peace laureate, Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He says the Israeli system in the occupied territories segregates two peoples and involves many different laws that discriminate against Palestinians, either by intention or default. Some people question why the fate of the Palestinians concerns me. Well, I am a human rights defender who believes in the principle of universal human rights. To me, human rights are for everyone, including Israelis and Palestinians, whether gay or straight. Human rights are about more than gay rights. I am not a gayist. I never judge any government or people solely on their stance on LGBT issues. It is important to consider all aspects of human tights, not just gay ones. By any standards, LGBT and straight Palestinians are being denied human rights by Israel, as well as by their own regimes. Israel is gay-friendly. Very commendably, it has good equality laws for LGBT people: the best in the Middle East. Indeed, vastly better than the surrounding homophobic Arab tyrannies. But there is a downside too. Although Israel likes to use its gay rights record to project a liberal image to the outside world, it refuses asylum to Palestinians fleeing homophobic and transphobic persecution. The truth is that Israel’s LGBT-friendly democracy is, to a considerable extent, based on the conquest of the Palestinian people. No amount of progressive LGBT policies can justify Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, the building of illegal new settlements and the on-going seizure of Palestinian farms and houses. Moreover, some of the victims of these Israeli expropriations are gay Palestinians. LGBT equality in a society based on the dispossession of the Palestinian people is not true liberation; it colludes with oppression. Queers Against Israeli Apartheid are right to expose the tainted rainbow flag that flies over Israel.
Posted on: Sat, 08 Jun 2013 18:53:10 +0000
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