Queer Theory [on Joseph Massad]: The Columbia Profsor Who also Don't Thk Gay People Exist the Arab World :: Camp Watch

Contents:

• RE-ORIENTG DIRE: THE GAY INTERNATNAL AND THE ARAB WORLD
• 3. RE-ORIENTG DIRE: THE GAY INTERNATNAL AND THE ARAB WORLD
• JOSEPH MASSAD: BETRAYG GAYS
• JOSEPH MASSAD: THE COLUMBIA PROFSOR WHO ALSO DON'T THK GAY PEOPLE EXIST THE MIDDLE EAST
• QUEERG THE ‘GLOBAL GAY’: HOW TRANSNATNAL LGBT LANGUAGE DISPTS THE GLOBAL/LOL BARY
• THE MYTH OF THE GAY INTERNATNAL
• JOSEPH MASSAD, HOMOPHOBIA, GAY RIGHTS AND THE STCTURE OF MORNY
• ACTIVISTS NMN VLENCE AGAST LGBTQ MUNY ST. VCENT, WHERE GAY SEX IS ILLEGAL

RE-ORIENTG DIRE: THE GAY INTERNATNAL AND THE ARAB WORLD

Through their ght relatnship wh the Cuban ernment, which reprented them as a cultural imperialist offensive agast the newly formed Communist state, the gay liberatnists veloped a dialectil nceptn of the ternatnal that acknowledged the differential nstutn of sexual life wh specific ntexts, yet sought to reveal the ternatnal systems of power that produce and regulate those seemgly distct sexual formatns across ternatnal divis.

A través su tensa relación n el gobierno cubano, que los reprentaba o una ofensiva cultural imperialista ntra el recién formado tado unista, los liberador homosexual sarrollaron una ncepción dialécti lo ternacnal que renocía la nstución diferencial la vida sexual ntro ntextos pecífis, pero que trataba revelar los sistemas ternacnal por que producen y regulan as formacn sexual aparentemente disttas a través las divisn ternacnal. Dans le dre lrs relatns tendu avec le gouvernement cuba, qui l représenta me une offensive culturelle impérialiste ntre l’État muniste nouvellement formé, l libératnnist gays ont développé une nceptn dialectique l'ternatnal qui rennaissa la nstutn différentielle la vie sexuelle dans s ntext spécifiqu tout en cherchant à révéler l systèm ternatnx pouvoir qui produisaient et régulaient c formatns sexuell apparemment distct -là s divisns ternatnal. The spread of mass media and munitns has sce enabled the creatn of virtual muni, a global nsumer culture has universalized ias of sirabily, and transnatnal stggl for sexual rights have achieved the ternatnal regnn and visibily of Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgenr, and Intersex (LGBTI) terdisciplary and expandg amic fields, such as transnatnal sexualy studi (TSS) and queer ternatnal relatns (QIR), have emerged to addrs the role of sexualy wh the procs of globalizatn.

3. RE-ORIENTG DIRE: THE GAY INTERNATNAL AND THE ARAB WORLD

A historil materialist mo of analysis expounds the divisn of the ternatnal to the distct spher of Wt/non-Wt, North/South, or re/periphery as historilly nstuted and found on palist social fd such a historil materialist approach to theorizg sexualy and the ternatnal wh the tellectual wrgs and transnatnal activi of the gay liberatn movement. ” The Gay Internatnal's ostensible liberatn project is, short, an imperialist unrtakg that is “stroyg social and sexual nfiguratns of sire” the non-Wt through the imposn of a Wtern sexual epistemology and cg non-Wtern stat to vlence agast those who display a Wternized inty of gayns (Massad 2002, 385) nceptn of the ternatnal is at work Joseph Massad's notn of the “Gay Internatnal”? To name but a few notable exampl, Mark McLelland (2000) has highlighted the signifint differenc between the associatns of the term “gay” wh Japan and the English-speakg world, Peter Jackson (2001) has mapped the variegated ways which foreign sexual disurs have been selectively and strategilly appropriated wh Asian ntexts toward the creatn of new sexual cultur, Jasbir Puar (2001) has shown how the effects of globalizatn Tridad have revealed the limed pacy of Wtern sexual disurs to travel transnatnally, and Katie Kg (2002) has nsired the polil implitns of lol mistranslatns of the term “lbian.

Not dissiar to pal's enforcement of a differentiatn between the public and private spher, which is part based upon a genred divisn of labor, the gay liberatnists unrstood imperialism's enforcement of the differentiatns re/periphery and Wt/non-Wt to be based part on a sexual what regard is a dualistic nceptn of the ternatnal based on a sexual divisn? The most prehensive theoretil elaboratns of gay liberatnism, Dennis Altman's Homosexual: Opprsn and Liberatn and Mar Mieli's Towards a Gay Communism, brg this dialectil relatn between the state's persecutn of homosexuals and the emergence of a policized gay movement to the Altman (2012, xi) is an Atralian polil scientist who beme part of the emergg US gay liberatn movement durg his brief stay New York Cy the early seventi.

JOSEPH MASSAD: BETRAYG GAYS

If “gay” implied a challenge to “the very fns and martns that society has created” (Altman 2012 [1971], 244)—and therefore volved a transformatn of nscns that would supplant the mdset of inty altogether—then “g out” is more accurately unrstood as a policizatn of homosexualy than as an sentializatn of homosexualy.

This unrstandg of the ternatnal as -extensive wh imperialist systems of social anizatn, as well as the ternal movements for their superssn, rewr as a se of polics rather than a mere scriptive tegory or a pre-nstuted terra on which polics plays gay liberatn movement largely embraced this analysis of the ternatnal.

” The term “gay ghetto” was therefore one way for gay and lbian activists to renceptualize genr and sexual liberatn as a fundamental transformatn stctur and relatns of power, breakg wh a nceptn of jtice as the regnn of homosexualy as a morarian liberatnist thought, however, did not simply rehearse the anti-imperialist analysis of this perd whout modifitn. Tensns began to arise between the two groups, as the gay liberatnists grew impatient wh their ras’ silence on the Cuban ernment's anti-homosexual activi, and epted a hostile nontatn the summer of 1970 when New York Cy’s Elg Theater accintally double-booked two benef showgs, one for the Venceremos Briga and one for a Stonewall memoratn. In s official statement banng self-avowed lbians and gays om participatn the Venceremos Brigas, the Natnal Commtee referred to gay liberatnism as “a cultural imperialist offensive agast the Cuban Revolutn” that was “imposg North Amerin gay culture on the Cubans (for example, paradg drag a Cuban town, actg an overtly sexual manner at parti)” (Venceremos Briga 1997 [1972], 411).

JOSEPH MASSAD: THE COLUMBIA PROFSOR WHO ALSO DON'T THK GAY PEOPLE EXIST THE MIDDLE EAST

Problematizg the claim that homosexualy was an ventn of Wtern morny (a claim found wh queerphobic state disurs and queer studi alike), Ann Lra Stoler (1995) has illtrated how such sexual chronologi bracket histori of “the Wt” om the sexual disurs of race and empire through which bourgeois sexualy “the Wt” was found and produced.

” Evince of the existence of same-sex practic the loni jtified the further pathologizatn and crimalizatn of homosexualy wh the the analys illtrate is that the Cuban state's disurse on homosexualy, while legimated as an anti-imperialist stance, fact stemmed directly om the iologi of sexualy that were veloped through the procs of empire buildg. The clud the centraly of the nuclear fay as the basic un of society; the prevalence of particular forms of sexism—machismo and male chvism—prent wh the Hispanic world; the nsolidatn and expansn of state power the aftermath of the revolutn; the “prerevolutnary stat of Havana as a ‘s cy’” due to the lonial rtcturg of s enomy around prostutn, gamblg, and nartics (Young 1981, 9); and the adoptn of Soviet theori of homosexualy (Young 1981, 15–18).

QUEERG THE ‘GLOBAL GAY’: HOW TRANSNATNAL LGBT LANGUAGE DISPTS THE GLOBAL/LOL BARY

Siar explanatory acunts of the productn of Cuban homosexualy relatn to postrevolutnary stctural adjtments and velopments n be found articl wh var gay liberatnist papers, cludg Guy Nassburg's exchange wh Martha Shelley The Detro Liberator (1970, 5–6) and Keh Birch's (1975, 8–9) extensive vtigatn “Gays Cuba” the Brish journal Gay Left. Firmly rejectg the Cuban state's sistence on a lol, revolutnary Cuban sexual culture that is endangered by the fluenc of gay and lbian North Amerin brigadistas, Allen Young (1981, 86) wr: “For a regime that mak such a fs about ‘cultural imperialism, ’ [s] pennce on Eastern Europe for tellectual ias and munitn is ntradictory and unfortunate. For Young, the ternatnal is not simply the ntral and objective field on which transnatnal polics occurs—a field posed of pre-nstuted s onto which discrete sexual cultur n be mapped—but rather a field that is produced and rema through an emergent imperial orr and the stggl for s discsn returns to the liberatnists’ reprentatn of gayns as separable om the polil nscns that is fed through a llective stggle agast the totalizg systems that produce and regulate (historilly and culturally varied) ndns of homosexualy.

” The activist Wayne Pierce (1970, 5), addg his voice to the discsns about experienc of the gay and lbian brigadistas, also reerated that gay liberatnism was not a fight for “a society wh ‘good lears, ’” who would extend regnn and guarantee protectn to an objective, empiril group of dividuals lled “homosexuals, ” but for a society “where the power is really the hands of the people” to achieve a total transformatn of the socpolil orr, cludg s erng regim of sexual and genr Los Angel Rearch Group, a group of self-avowed lbian munist liberatnists, wrote a pamphlet 1975 that tackled wispread Communist proclamatns on homosexualy. Polics of Pleasure: Settg South Asia StraightSoclogy2011Men who have sex wh men have always existed throughout the history of South Asia, however, those subscribg to a gay inty may face an creased and specific strs most of the ntemporary… The Polics and Lims of Transgenr South AiB CammgaSoclogyGlobal Queer Polics2018Through followg the archive of the Natnal Coaln for Gay and Lbian Equaly (NCGLE), an anisatn that spearhead LGBT rights ncerns South Ai the early 1990s, alongsi a… Eastern others: Homonatnalism the Flemish prsA.

THE MYTH OF THE GAY INTERNATNAL

In 2011, when Egyptian police arrted 52 gay men on a party boat on the Nile and then proceed to torture and shame them, paradg them public and showg them on televisn, Massad sid wh the thori, dismissg the 52 men as “wternized” persons who got what they had g to them bee of their aternizatn wh gay Wtern tourists. But Massad offers no evince to support ; he don’t take to acunt that to openly intify as gay or engage gay activism much of the Arab world would be to risk stant ath; and he ignor evince such as that prented a 2002 article by Yossi Kle Halevi, who had terviewed a number of young Paltian men who lived Tel Aviv.

"For the Gay Internatnal, transformg sexual practic to inti through the universalizg of gayns and gag 'rights' for those who intify (or more precisely, are intified by the Gay Internatnal) wh be the mark of an ascendg civilizatn, jt as reprsg those rights and rtrictg the circulatn of gayns is a mark of backwardns and barbarism, " he wr. By this far-reachg statement, Ahmadejad probably did not mean that out-and-proud gays of the Liberace variety ("like your untry") do not traipse through gay ghettos Tehran, that Iran's homosexuals are more subdued and "butch" than Ameri's; rather, is reasonable to duce that he meant homosexualy self do not exist.

While homosexuals Wtern mocraci (where they largely don't have to fear for their liv) may intify themselv differently than they do a place like Iran (where the state execut them), the notn that people attracted exclively to people of the same sex don't exist Iran--or any untry, for that matter--is empirilly false. He then go onto beltle not jt gay activists (one of whom, a founr of the Gay and Lbian Arabic Society, referred to the Queen Boat affair as "our own Stonewall, " reference to the 1969 Stonewall rt when a group of patrons at a New York Cy gay bar risted arrt, a moment creded wh sparkg the Amerin gay rights movement) but the persecuted men themselv.

JOSEPH MASSAD, HOMOPHOBIA, GAY RIGHTS AND THE STCTURE OF MORNY

The Queen Boat nnot be Stonewall, Massad sists, bee the "drag Queens at the Stonewall bar" embraced their homosexual inty, whereas the Egyptian men "not only" did "not seek publicy for their alleged homosexualy, they risted the very publicy of the events by the media by verg their fac orr to hi om the meras and om hysteril public scty. Makarem’s silly issuance of an open ll to the Gay Internatnal to e to his rcue and show solidary wh him and Helem (“The ternatnal LBGT muny should not shun s brothers and sisters Lebanon and Palte”) a b too late, as the group was fund and ntu to be fund, as I will show below, by Amerin and European anizatns, cludg Gay Internatnalist anizatns, sce 2005.

ACTIVISTS NMN VLENCE AGAST LGBTQ MUNY ST. VCENT, WHERE GAY SEX IS ILLEGAL

The first is the World Bank HELEM report I mentned above which was released on October 21, 2008 and which stat that “At prent, Helem has about 40 active LGBT members” (Page 10 of the report), and on the more recent claims by Helem spokperson Sharbil Mayda‘ who was quoted the Lebane newspaper Al-Safir on 23rd Febary 2009 sayg that the number of Helem members “ up to 40, 20 percent of whom are not homosexuals but believe our rights. Makarem do not seem to unrstand that what I say (which is hardly even ntroversial amic scholarship) is that homosexualy and heterosexualy were both produced Wtern Europe and the Uned Stat the neteenth cricism of the Gay Internatnal sce my first article on the subject 2002 (“Re-Orientg Dire: The Gay Internatnal and the Arab World, ” Public Culture, Sprg 2002), which is expand and clud as a chapter Dirg Arabs, is that their ternatnalism (and that of the Straight Internatnal’s) will lead not to the creatn of a queer pla “but rather a straight one” (Dirg Arabs, 190). Therefore he uld not agree more wh this outg strategy that he shar wh “salafists and chvists;” he only differs wh them his polil mands, the rults of which will only be police reprsn, not only agast those who choose to intify as gay, but agast the majory of women and men who practice same sex ntact and who refe to assiate to Wtern gayns.

Makarem’s unfound allegatn that I refe “to regnize the agency of persons wh non-nformg sexual orientatns, ” is even more ironic sce not only do I sist my wrgs that everyone mt regnize the agency of all of those who practice same sex and different sex ntact not to assiate to gayns and straightns, but I also cricize those who rob them of agency and sist on speakg for them as Mr. Makarem and his ternatnal supporters know that I am none of the thgs they wish I were, let start the Massad The bate: 1) The Wt and the Orientalism of sexualy (Joseph Massd talks to Ernto Pagano) 2) We are not agents of the Wt (Ghassan Makarem repli to Joseph Massad) 3) «I cricize Gay Internatnalists, not gays» (Joseph Massad unter-repli to Ghassan Makarem).

So when The New York Tim vered the arrts and torture by the Egyptian ary of fifty-two gay men May 2001, the astonishg picture the “paper of rerd” of so many gay men verg their fac wh whe towels as they were herd wh ttle prods to a Cairo urthoe was enough to propel many gay and lbian people the Wt to look serly at the ndns of their own kd the Middle East for the first time. And ’s really sad for the guys on the football team who ed to like all that butt slappg after a great play, bee now, thanks to the gays—who mand that they shouldn’t be imprisoned or bashed, and even go so far as to have their own paras, and sg gay songs, and make movi and TV shows—the regular guys n no longer slap each other’s butts whout someone spectg they might be queer. Sexual inty won’t change that, but Key’s straightforward romantic moment cuts across the great divi so betifully to prove a sensivy, among so many gay and lbian people every culture, behd that slogan first heard shouted loudly by the young gay liberatnists as a chant on the first Christopher Street Gay Pri March 1970, a year after the Stonewall Rts: “We Are Everywhere!