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Righting Wrongs: Post-colonialisms and sexual rights in the developing world.

Taushif Kara

INTD 491: Honours Thesis International Development Studies McGill University Montréal, Québec

April 2012

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Abstract

Within the context of Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s recent statements to the United Nations General Assembly claiming “gay rights are ”, this essay aims to broaden the scope of Joseph Massad’s “Gay International” theory beyond the Arab world. I argue that so-called gay rights “violations” would benefit from re-evaluation through a post-colonial lens, and that in actuality these instances of violence against practitioners of same-sex conduct are amplification of a broader struggle in the developing world against empire. As in-depth case studies of this struggle, I use the Queen Boat trial in Egypt and the ban of the Gays and of Zimbabwe (GALZ) from an International Book Fair in Harare.

I: Introduction

Imperialism is the export of identity.

Edward Said

Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat; But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth, When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth!

Rudyard Kipling, The Ballad of East and West

The (Gay) White Man’s Burden.

In November of 2011, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights released a report commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) entitled:

“Discriminatory laws and practices and acts of violence against individuals based on their sexual orientation and gender identity.”1 The report recommends that member states repeal laws used to “criminalize individuals on grounds of homosexuality”, investigate

1 United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Discriminatory laws and practices and acts of violence against individuals based on their sexual orientation and gender identity , (Geneva: United Natios Human Rights Council, 2011).

Righting Wrongs | 2 Taushif Kara | 260301196 and address reported past “incidents of violence” against individuals because of their

“actual or perceived sexual orientation”, and instate comprehensive “sensitization” programs for public servants to “counter homophobia”.2 A month later, US Secretary of

State Hilary Clinton spoke before the General Assembly to present the implications of this report, urging member states to accept the notion that “gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights.”3 In her remarks, Clinton insists that “being gay is not a

Western invention; it is a human reality”, and frames the entire issue through a lens of

“progress”, imploring member states to “be on the right side of history”.4 Pakistan’s envoy to the UN, speaking on behalf of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) was “seriously concerned” at the prospect of these new notions, notions he deemed to have “no legal foundation”.5 An African diplomat from Mauritania maintained that the resolution “was an attempt to replace the natural rights of a human with an unnatural right.”6

The UN report and Clinton’s subsequent statements clearly present “gay rights” within the spectrum of human rights, framing them as relevant indicators for “progress” – a progress that is understood exclusively in terms of western modernity. The progress or development, rather of a given state is intimately linked to and perhaps becomes

2 Ibid, 24-25. 3 U.S. Department of State, Remarks in Recognition of International Human Rights Day, December 6, 2011, http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2011/12/178368.htm (accessed March 10, 2012). 4 Ibid. 5 Frank Jordans, U.N. Gay Rights Protection Resolution Passes, Hailed As 'Historic Moment', June 17, 2011, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/17/un-gay-rights-protection-resolution- passes-_n_879032.html (accessed March 10, 2012). 6 Ibid.

Righting Wrongs | 3 Taushif Kara | 260301196 synonymous with its position towards “gay” citizens.7 The articulation of “gay rights” in this particular frame is problematic for several reasons. Initially, it assumes the existence of a transnational and static gay identity that is shaped almost exclusively by western

(Euro-American) pronunciations. That is, the western construct of “gay” as an identity category that gives preference (both legal and cultural) to public and collective sexual identity over actual sexual conduct.8 It also advocates a distinct gay/straight binary and contributes to the erasure of more flexible, previously existing sexualities in non-western societies. The model in the west presumes that outward expressions of sexual identity are exactly representative of one’s preferred sexual conduct, and it is this narrative that is used to sustain (and justify) the sort of identity-based rights declarations made above. The global rights framework then comes to wholly ignore conduct and desire in favour of collective identity, claiming a nascent worldwide gay identity – “Global Gay” – does indeed exist, and looks just like the local (western) one.9 What Carl Stychin calls the

Stonewall model of activism serves as the foundation for this identity-based rights framework:

“There are many examples that demonstrate the export of an Anglo-American, “Stonewall” model of sexuality, identity, and liberation. In the Stonewall model, same-sex sexuality marks an identity category that comes to be labeled as gay, , or both. […] Put crudely, who (in terms of gender) one has sexual relations with is the key to who you are, and the “coming out” is the central moment of identity formation. The sexual relations model has increasingly transcended its own cultural and historical roots to become universalized as the paradigm of sexual identity.”

7 “Modern states recognize a sexual minority within the national body and grant that -based protections. Pre-modern states do not.” In Katherine Franke, "Dating the State: The Moral Hazards of Winning Gay Rights," (Unpublished Draft), 2012, 19. 8 Sonia Katyal, "Exporting Identity," Yale Journal of Law and Feminism 14 (2002): 97-176. 9 Denis Altman, "Global Gaze/Global Gays," GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 3 (1997): 417-436.

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It is not in the scope of this essay to critique the use or validity of identity-based approaches to activism within the west. Rather, it is in the globalization and universalization of these methods, manifest in the quest to “liberate” the oppressed

“Global Gay”, where it finds valid critique. A major point of contention with this particular model of identity-based activism is that in most of the non-western world (and the western world as well, until quite recently) the conflation of conduct with identity does not necessarily exist. While same-sex sexual practice has existed and continues to exist in the non-western world, the coupling of it with the category of “homosexual” and its place within the broader realm of “sexual orientation” is a construct and export of the west.10 Thus, the performance of an act deemed homosexual by western parameters is not necessarily equated with “homosexuality” as an identity category in the non-west. In this way, identity-based activism built upon a sexual epistemology that does not translate into non-western cultures is inherently misguided, and would seem also to be ineffective. Yet the burden of the white gay man to liberate the oppressed foreign gay still persists, often with dire consequences for those targeted in the liberation movement.

The main paradox with this brand of identity-based and rights oriented activism is that efforts to liberate the constructed gay from the apparently oppressive regimes of the developing world often result in reactionary responses by those very regimes. An essay by Joseph Massad entitled Re-Orienting Desire: The Gay International and the Arab

World unpacks this process with relation to the Arab world.11 Massad argues in this essay, as well as in his later book Desiring Arabs, the identities of “gay” and

10 David Halperin, "Homosexuality: A Cultural Construct," in One Hundred Years of Homosexuality, 41-53 (New York: Routeledge, 1990). 11 Joseph Massad, "Re-Orienting Desire: The Gay International and the Arab world," Public Culture 14, no. 2 (2002): 361-385.

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“homosexual” and their associated sexual epistemologies are imposed upon the Arab world by the west through a combination of discourse and institution, which he dubs the

Gay International. Organizations like the International Lesbian and Gay Association

(IGLA) and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) produce this discourse, and bodies like the UN Human Rights Council work within it.

The activism and liberation tactics of the Gay International provoke a response by regimes in the Arab world in which they seek out and persecute constructed “gays” in an effort to undermine western influence. It must be made clear that Massad does not deny the existence of men and women who have same-sex sexual desire or participate in same- sex sexual acts – in fact he substantiates the existence of these desires in great detail throughout Desiring Arabs. He does deny, however – correctly so, I believe – that the associated sexual identities of “gay”, “lesbian”, and “homosexual” were produced organically in the Arab world, instead arguing that the Gay International implanted them in to it. It becomes abundantly clear that the activities and imported discourse of the Gay

International are understood as an expansion of western cultural imperialism by regimes in the Arab world; as a threat to national identity and in some cases even national security, that merit an immediate and often violent response. The response however, usually results in further suppression of the constructed gay and an even more inflamed regime, not to mention the complete erasure of existing same-sex sexualities that do not conform to the categories set out by the Gay International:

“…it is the discourse of the Gay International that both produces homosexuals, as well as gays and lesbians, where they do not exist, and represses same-sex desires and practices that refuse to be assimilated into its sexual epistemology.”12

12 Ibid, 363.

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I argue that the framing and utility of identity-based activism by the Gay

International and its interpretation as a neo-colonial intervention by regimes is not limited to the Arab world, and that the struggle against “gay rights” in the broader developing world must be understood as a struggle against empire. While it may indeed be true that the “Gay International has reserved a special place for the Muslim world in both its discourse and its advocacy”13, the type of reactionary nationalism it inspires extends well beyond religious or ethnic boundaries, to many post-colonial developing nations. Joseph

Massad’s notion of a missionary Gay International is absolutely relevant to the developing world because the persistence of colonial memory makes it so. In an effort to erase its colonial past and consciously deter future neo-colonial penetration, the developing state attempts to authenticate its present traditions by defending itself against the interventions of the Gay International. The new imperialism of the Gay International thus becomes crystallized in the language of “gay rights” and embodied in the body of the “gay male”14 precisely because of the identity centric nature of contemporary activism. ‘Homophobia’ comes to exist as a valuable tool for post-colonial statecraft and the strategic repression of ‘homosexuals’ is an effective and resonant method to exemplify one’s credentials – nationalist, religious, or otherwise. At this point, one must not forget that in many cases the legal frameworks that are used by such regimes in the developing world to repress “gays” are in fact themselves remnants of colonial rule.

13 Ibid, 362. 14 Because of the almost exclusive focus on male same-sex intimacies both in the examples of repression within developing nations and in the discourse of the Gay International, not to mention the relevant scholarship, this essay will unfortunately be void of examples pertaining to female same-sex intimacy. While I acknowledge that without a balanced understanding of both male and female expressions of same-sex intimacy a truly nuanced image of the problems with universalizing “gay rights” cannot be drawn, drawing the focus exclusively on males would be problematic for various reasons.

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Massad points out however, that in its struggle to resurrect an authentic and ironically pre-colonial “past”, the post-colonial nation looks to Orientalist constructions of its own sexualities which are of course themselves “an emulation of Western Christian fundamentalisms” from the colonial era.15 These same laws and what they represent, often classified as “archaic” by the Gay International, are then understood as “traditional” or “indigenous” by the post-colonial state.

It is useful to frame this struggle within the larger post-colonial struggle against total western infiltration of society, put forth by Partha Chatterjee.16 The developing world often stands without a choice when it comes to the adoption of western economic models, and pushes this sector to the “outer” sanctum of society. Religion and tradition, and the sexualities sanctioned by them, exist within the “inner” sanctum. Thus, for the post-colonial state:

“No encroachments by the colonizer must be allowed in that inner sanctum. In the world, imitation of and adaptation to Western norms was a necessity; at home, they were tantamount to annihilation of one’s very identity.”17

The problem is of course is that nationalist and post-colonial ideas of ‘tradition’ are also clouded by Orientalist constructions, and the quest by the developing state to revive an ‘authentic’ pre-colonial identity – including a ‘pure’, uncolonized sexuality – is often in vain. The struggle against “gay rights” in the developing world is a struggle against empire. It is important to illustrate this struggle by reevaluating contemporary

“gay rights violations” through an appropriate lens. First, the 2001 Queen Boat trial in

Egypt will be re-evaluated. The trial of the Cairo 52 is often mischaracterized, either as a

15 Joseph Massad, Desiring Arabs (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007): 194-195. 16 Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993). 17 Ibid, 121.

Righting Wrongs | 8 Taushif Kara | 260301196 religiously inspired Islamist “crackdown” on gays or as a distraction from the nation’s economic troubles. However, in analyzing the trials with the post-colonial struggle against empire in mind and the missionary impulses of the Gay International in the foreground, a new picture of Mubarak’s “performance” begins to form. The 1998

Zimbabwe International Book Fair and the overtly ‘homophobic’ comments and governance of Robert Mugabe constitute another such “violation” that is in actuality a result of Gay Internationalist interventions combined with colonial memories. Finally, I must acknowledge that a stance such as Massad’s and the argument offered here is quite controversial, given the extreme nature of the violence experienced by affected individuals in the developing world. Its implications on a broader sense with regards to the future of human rights could be misconstrued as insensitive relativism or worse – homophobia. Thus, following a discussion of Egypt and Zimbabwe, an analysis of these criticisms and possible solutions to this struggle will be presented.

II: Egypt

The Cairo 52

On May 11, 2001 officers from the Egyptian state security investigation unit and members of the local Cairo vice squad raided a nightclub housed in a boat on the Nile.

The club, known as the ‘Queen Boat’, was a popular stop for gay-identified Egyptian men, as well as for European and American sex-tourists. The raid saw the eventual arrest of 52 men – all of whom were Egyptian. Thirty-four of the men were arrested directly from the nightclub and the remainder from their homes. Upon their detainment the men were subjected to medical examination to confirm their sexual “deviance” and charged

Righting Wrongs | 9 Taushif Kara | 260301196 with “offending religion” and “practicing debauchery”, as Egypt has no direct laws pertaining to same-sex sexual acts in its penal code.18 The case was tried in Egypt’s

Emergency State Security Court (ESSC) – a court that exists to hear cases pertaining to

“terrorism and national security” with twenty-three convicted and sent to prison.19

Dubbed as the Cairo 52, the arrested men attracted an immense amount of international attention to Egypt from various human rights groups including Human

Rights Watch and Amnesty International, as well as countless Gay Internationalist groups. Both the Egyptian emergency court in which the men were tried as well as the western and non-western media that covered the trial determined the arrests to stem from a primarily religious precept. That is, that Islam – and perhaps Islamism – inspired the crackdown and that such deviance was diametrically opposed to Islamic values. Although one of the charges against the Cairo 52 was indeed “offending religion”, this broad charge alone in no way defines the reasons for the case as a whole. The arrests of the

Cairo 52 and the trials that followed are tied neither to Islamic values nor laws, and a preliminary survey of the relevant shari’a would confirm this.

The Queen Boat case reached such an intense degree of international exposure and received such close attention by the Egyptian government not because of Islamist pressure, but because the Cairo 52 presented a threat to national security, and the western response to their trial echoed and even amplified this threat. The development and consolidation of a ‘gay identity’ – manifest in the Queen Boat’s very existence and other instances prior to the arrest of the Cairo 52 – constitutes this threat to the state of Egypt,

18 Joseph Massad, "Re-Orienting Desire: The Gay International and the Arab World," Public Culture 14, no. 2 (2002): 381. 19 Hassan El-Menywai, "Persecution of Homosexuals: The Egyptian Government’s Trojan Horse against Religious Groups ," Human Rights Brief 14, no. 1 (2006): 18.

Righting Wrongs | 10 Taushif Kara | 260301196 and the response from the west through the Gay International augments it. The Gay

International in the case of Egypt presents a formidable hazard to Egyptian national security – at least in the eyes of the Mubarak regime – in forcefully implanting ‘gayness’ into Egyptian society and thereby threatening the regime.

However, prior to exploring this concept, an initial discussion of the Islamic – and perhaps more importantly, the Islamist – perspective on same-sex sexual acts must be presented. It may indeed be that the Queen Boat case was handled by the Mubarak regime in such a sensationalized way in order to appease Egypt’s conservative masses and slow the popularity of the growing Muslim Brotherhood. First, I argue that although this should be acknowledged as a real and major factor, it is not by any means the overarching cause of the arrests and exasperated trial. In fact, the Mubarak regime’s actions in this respect fit within the context of preserving national security. Second, the systemized process by which the Gay International implants and then defends the gay identity and its associated ‘rights’ against the Egyptian government will be outlined.

Finally, a discussion of how of same-sex sexuality perception and ‘rights’ may evolve in a post-Mubarak Egypt will be presented.

Islam is the solution?

With the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood gaining popularity and momentum in

Egypt, it made sense politically for the Mubarak regime to portray that it indeed held

‘Islamic’ values in high regard through prosecuting against the apparent deviance that existed in the Queen Boat. At first glance, the arrest and trial proceedings fit with the

“regime’s efforts to present an image as the guardian of public virtue, to deflate an

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Islamist opposition movement that appears to be gaining support every day.”20 In fact, one of the official charges brought against the Cairo 52 was “offending religion”, based on the conspiracy that “one of the accused had allegedly written a text that advances a

“heretical” interpretation of Islam as a religion that revels in same-sex contact.”21 The case was painted by the Egyptian press accordingly, with the Cairo 52 constantly identified as the “new people of Lot” and accused of “Satan worship”.22 The Islamization of the Queen Boat trial served as an attempt to bolster the religious credentials of the

Mubarak regime, legitimizing it in the eyes of Egypt’s conservatives and upstaging the

Muslim Brotherhood.

It is imperative to reiterate at this point that the Queen Boat trials were carried out before an Emergency State Security Court (ESSC) – a system implemented after the assassination of Anwar Sadat with the aim of “protecting Egypt’s national security.”23

Interestingly enough, these same courts are used to try members of the Muslim

Brotherhood and other Islamist groups, with Mubarak “often deploying the emergency court system as a means to try and detain his political opponents without due process.”24

The President has the ability to overturn, annul, or reverse any decisions made in these courts. It can thus be argued that the Queen Boat case was tried in such a publicized manner in the interest of maintaining national security. The Mubarak regime was effectively and simultaneously both persecuting and upstaging the state’s Islamists in

20 Hossam Bahgat, Explaining Egypt's Targeting of Gays, July 23, 2001, http://www.merip.org/mero/mero072301 (accessed November 9, 2011). 21 Massad, “Re-Orienting Desire,” 381. 22 Muhammad Shah, "The "case of the new people of Lot" in Egypt: Hard labor for 23 suspects and the acuittal of 29," al-Hayah, November 15, 2001: 8. 23 Hassan El-Menywai, “Persecution of Homosexuals: The Egyptian Government’s Trojan Horse against Religious Groups ,” Human Rights Brief 14, no. 1 (2006): 18. 24 Ibid, 18.

Righting Wrongs | 12 Taushif Kara | 260301196 order to disqualify political competition. And, just as the presence of a gay identity manifest in the Cairo 52 presents a threat to national security and to the political strength of the regime, as does the popular resurgence of the Brotherhood.

Although the arrests were indeed Islamified by the Mubarak regime, in actuality there is nothing ‘Islamic’ at all about the way in which the Cairo 52 were arrested and tried, save that the perceived ‘crime’ in question is punishable in the shari’a. However, the conditions for punishment are akin25 to zina (extramarital fornication) and are thus extremely restrictive, and in no way allow for unwarranted arrest. Charges of zina “must be proven by four trustworthy (‘adl) male witnesses who must all appear in the same court session to testify, in extreme detail and in unambiguous (sarih) language, that they saw the couple engage in sexual activity…”26 This undoubtedly invalidates the arrest, but the pertinent shari’a also permits punishment if those charged willingly confesses. In fact, the accused “not only denied being ‘homosexual’ or ‘gay’ but also added that they were forced under torture to sign false confessions that they were indeed ‘deviants’”27 – further nullifying the arrest and trial, because the shari’a outlines that the confession must be produced willingly, without torture.

The Cairo 52 were illustrated as un-Islamic deviants by the Mubarak regime and the state-sponsored Egyptian press. This false characterization occurred not because their arrest and trial were rooted in the shari’a – which it is not – but to systematically reinforce the Mubarak regime’s perceived religiosity, while quashing that of the Islamist

Muslim Brotherhood. This strategy was meant to supplement a series of trials against the

25 “Homosexual zina is treated like its heterosexual counterpart by all schools except the Hanafites…” in Wael B. Hallaq, Shari'a between past and present: theory, practice and modern transformations (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009): 315. 26 Ibid, 314. 27 Joseph Massad, Desiring Arabs (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2007).

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Brotherhood and other Islamists in the very same Emergency Court system used for the

Queen Boat trials. The ESSC exists to preserve national security, outlining that the

Mubarak regime viewed both the resurgence of the Brotherhood and the Cairo 52 as formidable threats to that security – allowing for the methodical persecution of both within the same system.

Trials of Culture

The process by which a gay sexual epistemology became implanted in Egyptian society is vital to understanding why the Gay International and the events surrounding the

Queen Boat trial posed such an immediate threat to national security. Prior to the arrest of the Cairo 52, there was an increase in American and European gay sex tourism in Egypt as well as a corresponding increase in Internet activity amongst such men seeking to arrange meetings with gay-identified Egyptian men.28 With specific reference to the proliferation of gay identity in Egypt prior to the Queen Boat trials, Massad argues:

“…the [Egyptian] police do not seek to, and cannot if they were so inclined, arrest men practicing same-sex contact but rather are pursuing those among them who identify as “gay” on a personal level and who seek to use this identity as a group identification through social and public activities. […] The point being that it is not same-sex sexual practices that are being repressed by the Egyptian police but rather the sociopolitical identification of these practices with the Western identity of gayness and the publicness that these gay-identified men seek.”29

Websites like the English language “gayegypt.com”30 openly consolidate a gay identity within Egypt, presenting a threat to national security because they represent a western infiltration of society. Leading up to the Queen Boat arrests, there was also a modest level of ‘gay rights’ activism coming from within Egypt:

28 Ibid, 182. 29 Massad, “Re-Orienting Desire,” 382. 30 Ibid.

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“…prior to the Mubarak Government’s publicised [sic] campaigns against gays, I ‘came out of the closet’… In my activism I used the language of gay identity that I had learned from gay rights organizations and from other online outlets describing gay pride… I was outraged by the systematic persecution of gays and decided to speak out more openly by engaging in public lectures and demonstrations in Egypt. These public declarations about being gay eventually led to my imprisonment and torture.”31

There is a clear connection between the way in which Hassan El-Menyawi – the activist quoted above – and the eventual persecution of the gay-identified Cairo 52. A distinctly western gay identity was implanted into Egyptian society by the Gay

International, prompting the creation of Web sites like gayegypt.com and internal gay rights activism. This in turn directly provoked the insecurities of the Mubarak regime and fuelled persecution, culminating in the arrest of the Cairo 52. The penetration of a new sexual epistemology by an outside power thereby threatens the Mubarak regime’s monopoly on power and, by extension, state security.

Following the arrests, the trial itself became the stage for a socio-political struggle between the Egyptian government and the Gay International. The Cairo 52 were arrested because they were branded with the gay identity initially implanted by the Gay

International, but the trial reached such a global scale because of the pendulum of discourse that occurred after the arrests. Beginning just after the raid, there was a “torrent of media collusion with the government” with Egyptian journalists reproving the

“practice of “deviance” as a new Western imposition.”32 The coverage was echoed and to some extent amplified at an international scale33, prompting the IGLHRC, Amnesty

31 Hassan El-Menyawi, "Activism from the Closet: Gay Rights Strategising in Egypt," Melbourne Journal of International Law, 2006: 34-35. 32 Massad, Desiring Arabs, 183. 33 For mainstream media coverage see Howard Schneider, "Cultural Struggle Finds Symbol in Gay Cairo: Arrests of 52 Men Reflect Tension between Islamic Traditionalists, Secularists," Washington Post, September 9, 2001: A24; Caroline Hawley, Anger over Egypt gay trial, August

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International, and Human Rights Watch to publicly reprimand the arrests through a letter- writing campaign to the regime.34

The trial itself was very well attended by the western media and various human rights NGOs, with photographers and cameramen allowed to photograph and film during the trial – which had to be relocated to a larger courthouse after the opening session because of space.35 The now infamous photographs of hooded defendants circulated around the globe along with the verdicts: twenty-three convicted in total, most of whom were sentenced to a two year prison term with hard labour, with the court ruling “Eastern society… condemn[s] deviance and perversion/delinquency.”36 This of course saw hysteric reaction from the west – this time from U.S. congressmen Barney Frank and

Tom Lantos (who threatened to cutoff U.S. aid to Egypt if the government did not release the men), in protests outside Egyptian embassies around the world, and in statements from the European Parliament.37 Responding to international diplomatic pressure,

Mubarak refused to ratify most of the sentences38 claiming that the trial should never have proceeded within the ESSC. Prosecutors retried the case outside the ESSC in 2002 and the men were reconvicted and were actually sentenced to an additional year in prison, which was then later reduced upon appeal.

15, 2001, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1493041.stm (accessed November 19, 2011); and Philip Smucker, "A clash of cultures in Egypt: The trial of 52 alleged homosexuals pits traditional values against calls for secular tolerance.," The Christian Science Monitor, September 18, 2001. 34 Massad, Desiring Arabs, 183. 35 Nicola Pratt, "The Queen Boat case in Egypt: sexuality, national security and state sovereignty," Review of International Studies, no. 33 (2007): 141. 36 Massad, Desiring Arabs, 182. 37 Ibid, 183; and Pratt, “The Queen Boat case in Egypt,” 141. 38 The two main defendants’ sentences were not overturned and thus remained jailed throughout the retrial process.

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This elaborate “performance”39 by the Mubarak regime is important in that it reveals how the Queen Boat case evolved into a polarized struggle between Egypt and the west vis-à-vis the Gay International. For Massad, the trial and retrial routine “may be seen as an attempt by Egyptian authorities to publicly defend national sovereignty against western intervention”40 and decadence. Through constant reaction and provocation of the

Egyptian government in the name of defending rights, the Gay International “only further ignited the rhetoric”41, threatening security and creating tension in a cyclic manner. The

“vilification campaigns” against the Cairo 52 “intensified precisely as a result of the actions of the Gay International and the western politicians whose support it solicited.”42

The reaction by the Mubarak regime is rooted in the same cultural misconceptions about the distinctly western categorizations of sexuality that the Gay International promotes.

The “categorical discourses of sexuality” present in the straight/gay binary imposed by the west does not necessarily apply to Egypt – but the state’s “cultural nationalists” mistakenly think it does and thus become caught in a post-colonial struggle subconsciously. Through misguidedly homosexualizing the Cairo 52, the Gay

International forced the Mubarak regime to heteroseuxalize them through torturous and unfair persecution.

Scott Long, IGLHRC representative and unofficial ‘ambassador’ of the Gay

International in Egypt referred to the hearings as “Trials of Culture” symbolically pitting the undemocratic Egyptian government against the progressive, secular west: “Men

39 Pratt, “The Queen Boat case in Egypt,” 141. 40 Ibid. 41 Massad, Desiring Arabs, 183. 42 Ibid, 184.

Righting Wrongs | 17 Taushif Kara | 260301196 having sex with men were and remain scapegoats sacrificed to the fear of the outside”.43

What Long misses in his analysis is that he – as an integral part of the Gay International’s machinery – actively incites the very “Trials” he critiques by implanting and fostering a gay identity and proceeding to ‘defend’ its ‘rights’. Following the heavily publicized

Queen Boat case, the Egyptian press and some Islamists have in fact begun to demand firmer and more explicit laws aimed at criminalizing same-sex practice, as the current laws against “debauchery” are relatively too flexible.44

The expression and social organization of gay-identified men in Egypt upon the

Queen Boat may have lead to their arrest, but it is undoubtedly the pendulum of discourse between the provocative Gay International and defensive Egyptian government in the wake of the trial that impelled a “performance” of persecution. The activities of the Gay

International in Egypt, although aimed at the liberation of men who have sex with men, in actuality incited a discourse that encourages their very repression. Ironically the Gay

International sees the blatant increase in oppression:

“The Queen Boat trial intensified harassment. A new wave of cases in which groups of men were arrested spurred renewed speculation over gay “organizations” and “cults.” Amid tabloid headlines and allegations of orgies, these stories recapitulated the better-known scandal on a smaller scale.”45

After Tahrir

The Arab Spring has prompted questions among supporters and proponents of the

Gay International as to whether the newly acquired ‘freedom’ will be good or bad for

43 , "Trials of Culture: Sex and Security in Egypt," Middle East Report, 2003: 20. 44 Massad, “Re-Orienting Desire,” 383. 45 Human Rights Watch, In a Time of Torture: The Assault on Justice in Egypt's Crackdown of Homosexual Conduct, (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2004): 49.

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‘gays’ in the Middle East. Fears that a “new era of oppression”46 will form if the Muslim

Brotherhood were to come to power and that “gays” will end up being “sacrificial lambs”47 of the revolution are popular in the western media. These fears are rooted in the

Islamification of crackdowns like the Queen Boat trial and the commonly held notion that

“Islamist governments are inherently intolerant of non-normative sexual behaviour”48.

This preemptive action against Islamists uses “gay Arabs” as “the latest fodder used to fan the flames of Islamophobia”49 in the west and in turn acts as another incitement to discourse with the Gay International provoking Islamists – as it did to the Mubarak regime – to react. A profile of the Brotherhood in The Guardian mentioned how the party

“specifically excluded gay rights”50 from their discussion of human rights, and the newly formed Freedom and Justice Party has yet to release any statement on the topic.

Exclusion of these issues from the discussion may be, although surprisingly so for the

Gay International, evidence of success for the protection of same-sex sexuality in Egypt.

Popular conceptions that Islam is inevitably opposed to same-sex sexuality and will somehow enforce this opposition in a violent and persecutory manner are flawed.

Indeed there is space for personal interpretation in the shari’a, especially in modern

Islamist discourse. To conclude that Islamists are exclusively behind the torturous

46 Keli Goff, Does the New "Free" Egypt Mean Freedom for Gays & Lesbians There?, February 14, 2011, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/keli-goff/does-the-new-free-egypt-m_b_823225.html (accessed November 19, 2011). 47 Catriona Davies, Will gays be 'sacrificial lambs' in Arab Spring?, May 27, 2011, http://articles.cnn.com/2011-05-27/world/gay.rights.arab.spring_1_gay-rights-islamic-law- homosexuality?_s=PM:WORLD (accessed November 19, 2011). 48 Maya Mikdashi, Gays, Islamists, and the Arab Spring: What Would a Revolutionary Do?, June 11, 2011, http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/1836/gays-islamists-and-the-arab-spring_what- would-a-re (accessed November 19, 2011). 49 Ibid. 50 Jack Sheneker and Brian Whitaker, "The Muslim Brotherhood uncovered," The Guardian, February 9, 2011: 16.

Righting Wrongs | 19 Taushif Kara | 260301196 oppression of the Cairo 52, and will continue to perpetuate such oppression in the wake of the Arab Spring, is mistaken. However, persecution of men and women with same-sex sexual desire will continue if the Gay International resumes – or worse, intensifies – its missionary tactics in Egypt by forcefully entrenching a distinctly western gay identity within society and provoking governments to react.

III: Zimbabwe

A performance of post-colonial national identity perhaps even more explicit than the one enacted by the Mubarak regime in 2001 is the crisis and surrounding events of the

Zimbabwe International Book Fair in 1995. As was the case in Egypt, where it became commonplace in the western media to classify Mubarak’s treatment of the Cairo 52 either as inspired by Islam or as a distraction from a dwindling economy, Mugabe’s explicitly vocalized ‘homophobia’ is often mischaracterized as solely a political deflection away from the state’s autocracy, domestic hyperinflation, and other socio-economic problems.

A South African political cartoon (Fig. 1) depicting Mugabe as a counter-revolutionary

Marie Antoinette presents this well.51

While the distraction thesis may indeed contribute to Mugabe’s overt

‘homophobia’, it only constitutes part of the story. Here I will outline how a similar combination of colonial memory and aggressive nationalism are juxtaposed with Gay

Internationalist interventions into Zimbabwe, producing mischaracterized ‘homophobia’ and vocal public repression. First, an overview of the Book Fair performance as well as a brief insight into the colonial contribution to ‘homophobia’ is required. Second, the

51 Original cartoon by Dov Fedler, reprinted in Neville Hoad, "Between the White Man's Burden and the White Man's Disease," GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 5, no. 4 (1999): 560.

Righting Wrongs | 20 Taushif Kara | 260301196 enunciation of homosexuality as absolutely “un-African” by the Mugabe government and the subsequent identity struggles experienced will be outlined. It persists that binaries implanted into Zimbabwe by the Gay International under the guise of “gay rights” or

“liberation” result in the violent repression of those imported identities as well the erasure of existing sexualities.

Fig. 1: Robert Mugabe as Marie Antoinette. Bottom right corner depicts the R.S.A. (Republic of South Africa) holding a sign reading “what a drag”.

Worse than Dogs and Pigs?

The Gay and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ) was founded at the dawn of the

1990s as an amalgamation of two preexisting groups, the Women’s Cultural Club (WCC) and the Pink Berets men’s organization.52 According to former director of GALZ Keith

Goddard , the two precursor organizations were, “except for a few coloureds,” largely made up of “middle class professional white men and women who identified as gay or

52 Keith Goddard, "A Fair Representation: GALZ and the HIstory of the Gay Movement in Zimbabwe," in Community organizing against homophobia and heterosexism: the world through rainbow-colored glass, 75-98 (Binghampton, NY: Harrington Park Press, 2004).

Righting Wrongs | 21 Taushif Kara | 260301196 lesbian.”53 GALZ joined the ILGA soon after it was founded, maintaining its “principle objective” was to “strive” for “full and equal rights in all aspects of life for all and lesbians within Zimbabwe.”54 The dominantly white origins of GALZ are especially notable in light of the vernacular used to frame homosexuality as the “White Man’s

Disease” by President Mugabe as the events surrounding the book fair progressed.55

One week before the Zimbabwe International Book Fair was set to begin, members of GALZ received a communication from the Zimbabwean Ministry of

Information announcing that GALZ had effectively been banned from participating in the book fair:

“The government is dismayed and shocked by the decision of the Book Fair Trustees to allow the so called Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ) to participate in the Zimbabwe International Book Fair (ZIBF)… The government strongly objects to the presence of the GALZ stand at the Book Fair which ahs the effect of giving acceptance and legitimacy to GALZ.”56

While GALZ was urged to voluntarily drop out of the Fair, it refused to do so, causing ZIBF to withdraw entirely its permission to participate. The stand requested by

GALZ was meant to carry pamphlets both in English and Shona with information about

HIV/AIDS as well as a section on “debunking myths about homosexuals”.57 The communication from the government stressed how “both Zimbabwean society and government do not accept the public display of homosexual literature and material” and that the ZIBF should not endorse GALZ and “force the values of gays and lesbians onto the Zimbabwean culture.”58 Because the response by the government first articulated

53 Ibid, 85. 54 Ibid. 55 Hoad, "Between the White Man's Burden". 56 Goddard, “A Fair Representation,” 93. 57 Ibid. 58 Ibid, 90-93.

Righting Wrongs | 22 Taushif Kara | 260301196 itself in a manner that sought to avoid the injection of presumably homosexual “values” by “force” in to Zimbabwean society, it is important to first examine the state of colonial and nationalist attitudes towards sexuality prior to interventions by the Gay International.

Epprecht posits that a discreet acceptance/tolerance towards same-sex intimacies in

Zimbabwe existed prior to colonial intervention, and that an “essential homophobia” in

African society may not necessarily be the case.59 He maintains further that experiences of male same-sex intimacies such as ngotshana (pederastic marriages) existed well before colonial rule.60 However, the colonial brought with it a distinct enunciation of masculinity – evident in the “boldly macho and heterosexually lusty” cowboy culture of the newly Christian white Rhodesia – which became absorbed into and interpreted within the early African nationalist movement.61 The movement misinterpreted this newly sexualized nationalism as importantly authentic and necessarily pre-colonial, thus allowing for a “popular culture of intolerance against homosexuality” that ignored race in favour of a masculine nationalism to coalesce in the 1950s:

“Just to be on the safe side, the Immigration Act of 1914 was revised in 1954. It prohibited anyone deemed to practice ‘homosexualism’ from entering the country even as tourists (let alone settling in and effeminizing the colony).”62

While remnants of nationalism allowed a nascent ‘homophobia’ to exist throughout colonial memory, it becomes clear after a study of the events surrounding the

GALZ Book Fair ban that the missionary activities of the Gay International consolidated

59 Marc Epprecht, "Black skin, 'cowboy' masculinity: A genealogy of homophobia in the African nationalist movement in Zimbabwe to 1983," Culture, Health & Sexuality 7, no. 3 (2005): 253- 266. 60 Marc Epprecht, "The 'Unsaying' of Indigenous Homosexualities in Zimbabwe: Mapping a Blindspot in an African Masculinity ," Journal of Southern African Studies 24, no. 4 (1998): 631- 651. 61 Epprecht, “Black sin, ‘cowboy’ masculinity”, 254. 62 Ibid, 257.

Righting Wrongs | 23 Taushif Kara | 260301196 and re-ignited this ‘homophobia’, further nationalizing sexuality in the name of defending national identity against western infiltration. Even Goddard recognized that just the domestic attention paid to the Book Fair incident meant that the “face of homosexuality in public perception was no longer seen to be just white”.63 Mugabe responded to this new threat to the African nation in a speech made on Heroes Day later that year, with comments that would spark an international controversy and inflame the missionary impulse of the Gay International:

“If we accept homosexuality as a right… what moral fibre shall our society ever have to deny organized rug addicts, or even those given to bestiality … It’s unnatural, and there is no question ever of allowing these people to behave worse than dogs and pigs …We have our own culture, and we must re-dedicate ourselves to our traditional values that make us human beings. … What we are being persuaded to accept is sub-animal behavior and we will never allow it here. If you see people parading themselves as lesbians and gays, arrest them and hand them over to the police!”64

The New York Times called the comments a “stinging attack on homosexuals”65 while Amnesty International chastised Mugabe as carrying out a “heavy handed attack upon the fundamental human right to freedom of expression.”66 The governments of

Sweden and New Zealand condemned what was now referred to as the “attacks” and seventy United States congressmen sent a letter to Mugabe accusing him of bigotry and reminding him of his obligations to uphold human rights.67 This prompted a debate in the

Zimbabwean parliament later that year, which voted to fully endorse the attitude of the

President, with one Member of Parliament noting:

63 Goddard, “A Fair Representation,” 94. 64 Katyal, “Exporting Identity”, 124. 65 The New York Times, "Zimbabwe Leader Condemns Homosexuality," August 2, 1995: A7. 66 Katyal, “Exporting Identity”, 124. 67 Ibid.

Righting Wrongs | 24 Taushif Kara | 260301196

“The whole body is far more important than any single dispensable part. When your finger starts festering and becomes a danger to the body you cut it off … The homosexuals are the festering finger.”68

This and statements like it prompted British gay activist Peter Tatchell, one of the main members of the Gay Internationalist group OutRage, to attempt a “citizen’s arrest” of Mugabe during his 1999 visit to London.69 This provoked Mugabe to claim that although “gay gangsters” ran the Tony Blair government, Tatchell may in fact visit

Zimbabwe if he wished, “as long as he does not try to organise homosexuals.”70

Mugabe’s opposition specifically to the public presence and social organization of

‘homosexuals’ in Zimbabwe speaks to the nature of the repression, in that he was targeting a distinctly western method of rights-oriented and identity-based, and perhaps most importantly, public ‘gay’.

(Coming) Out of Africa

The increase in attention paid to the case of Zimbabwe by the Gay International in light of the GALZ affair allowed an important political opportunity to develop for

Mugabe and the post-colonial state. “Homosexualism” as it was called, became increasingly referred to as a “white problem” and markedly “un-African”.71 While nascent homophobia had existed in Zimbabwe as a result of colonial intervention prior to the activities of the Gay International, the implanting of a new public and active

“identity” manifest in GALZ prompted Mugabe to amplify the existing homophobia in a

68 Goddard, “A Fair Representation,” 95. 69 BBC News, "UK Gay activist freed after Mugabe row ," October 30, 1999. 70 Alex Duval Smith, "Mugabe in new jibe at Blair's 'gay gangsters'," The Independent, November 13, 1999. 71 Katherine Franke, "Sexual Tensions of Post-Empire," Studies in Law, Politics, and Society 33 (2004): 69.

Righting Wrongs | 25 Taushif Kara | 260301196 particular way. The new representation of homosexuality as “un-African” is in part because of the emergence of a distinctly western gay identity in Zimbabwe facilitated by the Gay International, but also due to Mugabe’s need to reify and reproduce an

“authentic” African culture in a post-apartheid Africa. Phillips posits that apartheid South

Africa provided a cohesive and importantly un-African presence to which constructed ideas of “African nationalism” could be pitted against:

“…not only did the apartheid government provide Zimbabwe with an external military, economic, and political threat on which to focus, but it presented the Zimbabwean government with a moral high ground easily occupied.”72

Upon the dissolution of the apartheid government in 1991, a new “threat” with a just as easily occupied “moral high ground” was constructed in “homosexualism” so that

Mugabe could effectively distract attention from internal problems. As Hoad illustrates, while South Africa’s post-apartheid constitution explicitly bans based on sexual orientation, framing homophobia as a “relic of the colonial past that must be transcended” through “gay rights”, Zimbabwe presents the inverse where “gay rights” are a “sign of the transnational future that must be feared.”73 The “White Man’s Disease” thus becomes representative of all things colonial and thus exists fundamentally in opposition to all things African. Franke describes how Mugabe invented and utilized a

“revived” and “authentic” pan-African identity that was built in direct contrast to the colonial:

“By positioning himself as a pan-African leader whose normative commitments and values derived from traditionally African customary law, he could contrast himself with the cosmopolitan, multi-cultural and distinctly modern post- Apartheid South Africa. To this end, state-sponsored hostility to homosexuality as a modern, colonial imported identity proved to be a clever move that was part of a

72 Oliver Phillips, "Zimbabwean law and the production of a white man’s disease," Social and Legal Studies 6, no. 4 (1997): 471-491. 73 Hoad, “Between the White Man’s Disease,” 562.

Righting Wrongs | 26 Taushif Kara | 260301196

larger project of collapsing the state with the traditional African nation such that opposition to the state could be framed as anti-African.”74

The whitewashing of “homosexualism” in Zimbabwe exists as a response to the interventions of the Gay International, but the discourses also combine and build off one another. The Gay International’s placing of an identity assists in Mugabe’s placement of a threat, thereby fuelling the very existence and perpetuation of that constructed identity.

In this way the two act in tandem, both pushing existing same-sex intimacies into a static

“gay” identity category, thereby repressing desires that refuse to be assimilated into the prevailing epistemologies. What Mugabe may not expect however, and what the Gay

International may relish in, is the fact that the identification of a stable straight/gay binary by both parties has led to a “coming out” of sorts in Zimbabwe. Phillips discusses how this occurs not in the traditional sense, but in a way that has same-sex lovers pairing themselves within an identity category and choosing whether or not to participate in it:

“[Mugabe] has participated in the constitution of a new identity – one that is individualised, sexualised, and in this form, historically marginalised. Further, by publicising his homophobia President Mugabe has given an identity to many who were previously ignorant of or uncaring about it.”75

This new “liberation” or “coming out” from sexual ignorance as the Gay

International may term it in fact leads to further repression for constructed gays and a more intensified ‘homophobia’ expressed by the state. From the GALZ affair to present day – Mugabe’s recent remarks given on the occasion of his 88th birthday saw

74 Franke, “Sexual Tensions”, 70. 75 Oliver Phillips, "Constituting the global gay: Issues of individual subjectivity and sexuality in Southern Africa," in Sexuality in the Legal Arena, ed. C. Stychin and D. Herman (London: Athlone Press, 2000): 31.

Righting Wrongs | 27 Taushif Kara | 260301196 homosexuality (and now same-sex marriage) continuously framed as “insanity”76 – a more public and distinctly western gay identity is clearly targeted and violently repressed.

This is because the Gay Internationalist activities become interpreted within the broader post-colonial struggle against empire. Mugabe and the Zimbabwean government have participated in what Massad calls (borrowing from Foucault) an incitement to discourse instigated by the Gay International. In doing so, the Gay International aided in this case by repressive regimes and the legacy of colonialism, actively heteroseuxalizes a society by homosexualizing it. This not only forces individuals with same-sex desire to confine that desire to one object choice – “destroying social and sexual configurations of desire in the interest of reproducing a world in its own image”77 – it also inflames post-colonial memories and provokes reactionary tactics by regimes vying to ward off cultural imperialism.

IV: Criticisms and Conclusions

Most critiques of Massad have been polemic in nature, accusing him of blatant homophobia and likening his scholarship the comments made by Ahmadinejad in 2007

‘denying’ the existence of homosexuals in Iran.78 These, I argue, miss the point entirely.

Kirchick sustains that Massad’s argument provides an “apology for the oppression of

76 Angus Shaw, Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe President, Slams Gays, Western Values On 88th Birthday, February 25, 2012, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/25/robert-mugabe- zimbabwe-president-gays_n_1301149.html (accessed March 15, 2012). 77 Massad, “Re-Orienting Desire”, 385. 78 See: Arno Schmitt, "Gay Rights versus Human Rights: A Response to Joseph Massad," Public Culture 15, no. 3 (2003): 587-591; Sahar Amer, "Joseph Massad and the alleged Violence of Human Rights ," GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 16, no. 4 (2010): 649-653; Brian Whitaker, Distorting Desire, 2007, http://www.al-bab.com/arab/articles/text/massad.htm (accessed March 25, 2012); and, James Kirchick, "The Columbia Professor Who Also Doesn't Think Gay People Exist in the Middle East," The Nation, October 15, 2007.

Righting Wrongs | 28 Taushif Kara | 260301196 people who identify openly as homosexual” and in doing so sides with the “Islamist regimes” rather than “Islamic liberals”.79 A main issue with rebuttals like his and those of

Whitaker and Schmitt (two prominent Gay Internationalist scholars) is the refusal by these critics to accept that ‘religion’ or the issue of ‘tolerance’ have little to do with the oppression. They, like the Gay International, take for granted the existence of a static and stable “sexual orientation” like the one conditioned as such in the west. Rather than provide a reasoned critique, they fall back into the framework that produces Massad’s argument. The western epistemology of homosexuality is so embedded within the Gay

International and its sympathizers that the notion of same-sex conduct as gay and thus constitutive of a gay identity merits no critical interrogation of its own.

The second set of critiques, those that engage with the epistemological formation of Massad’s argument are much more difficult to unpack. Jacob provides the insight that

Massad, in his attempt to rid the “Arab cultural canon” of “demons that plague its ability to produce a poscolinal subject unfettered by a putatively Western temporality”, ends up becoming haunted by them.80 That is, in attempting to shed light on a new constructed binary that has been forcefully imposed (straight/gay), Massad is driven to reinforce an older one: east/west and pre-modern/modern. He “re-describes the object” resulting in a re-Othering and becomes caught within methodologies, terms, and temporalities that are themselves products of colonial modernity.81 Another interesting point comes from Amr

Shalanky, someone involved in the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights – a local gay rights initiative Massad posits as “westernized” and assistive to the Gay International’s

79 Kirchick, “The Columbia Professor”. 80 Wilson Jacob, Other Inscriptions: Sexual Difference and History Writing between Futures Past and Present, September 2009, http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=25004 (accessed March 25, 2012). 81 Ibid.

Righting Wrongs | 29 Taushif Kara | 260301196 efforts in Egypt. He supposes the conversation “consider taking a break from

Orientalism” entirely and posits that perhaps the developing world may in fact benefit from the “invention” of homosexuality because of its ability to eradicate sexism.82 While both are interesting, they fall slightly outside the scope of this essay but should nevertheless be acknowledged.

The third set presents less of a criticism and more of a question as to how to move beyond Massad’s basis. Julian Awwad poses the lingering question well:

“Once gay subjectivity has been constituted according to a postcolonial logic based on cultural authenticity, the need to address the material effects ensuing from such epistemological assumptions demands an account of how practical human rights mobilization might be envisioned.”83

These methods of human rights mobilization or protection rather would need to work by safeguarding sexual dissidents without necessarily placing them within a specific identity category. So called “activism from the closet”84 may indeed provide to be an effective strategy for protecting those with same-sex desire in a post-colonial regime without imposing upon them a western gay identity. Former Egyptian ‘gay rights’ activist Hassan El-Menyawi acknowledges the shortcomings of his own activism, claiming that “deploying identity as a means to advocate extending protections to gay men and women backfired.”85 Instead he proposes a type of covert, hidden activism from

“within” the closet, which neither openly suggests nor imposes a gay identity upon

Egyptians with same-sex desire but rather promotes activism that would indirectly benefit

Egyptian queers. Although his epistemology still contains the Gay Internationalist

82 Amr Shalakany, "On a Certain Queer Discontent with Orientalism," Proceedings of the Annual Meeting (American Society of International Law) 101 (2007): 125-129. 83 Julian Awwad, "The Postcolonial Predicament of Gay Rights in the Queen Boat Affair ," Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 7, no. 3 (2010): 330. 84 El-Menyawi, "Activism from the Closet,” 43. 85 Ibid.

Righting Wrongs | 30 Taushif Kara | 260301196 vocabulary of “gay rights” and “coming out” of and returning to the “closet”, his ideas for appealing to Islamists to invoke privacy rights which are based in the shari’a86 are nonetheless unique, and deserve close attention from western and Egyptian human rights groups. Whether or not this particular brand of non-Gay Internationalist activism could be transferred to other societies in the developing world remains a pressing question. It would follow that if an “activism from the closet” perspective was in fact favoured, it would necessarily have to develop organically (to whatever extent possible) and most importantly locally in order to resonate with the post-colonial subject and state.

The reality is that the torture, persecution, and ostracization of individuals who engage in same-sex conduct throughout the developing world are major issues that persist today. It was the horrific torture of the Cairo 52 that inflamed the Gay International to provoke and intervene in the first place: convicted defendants were those who were

‘revealed’ to be the ‘passive’ partner after extensive and intrusive anal “examinations” by the Egyptian Forensic Medical Authority to ensure their anus had indeed been “used”.87 It was Mugabe’s likening of “homosexuals” to “dogs and pigs” that inflamed both governments and the Gay International to react – not out of missionary intent but out of a presumed genuine concern for the endangered (albeit constructed) homosexual. However, these instances must be addressed with a sensitive, and most importantly unimposing framework for practical human rights activism that must consciously aim not to provoke such actions. It is clear that the Gay International must cease in igniting and amplifying of the larger post-colonial struggle against empire. But is this even possible? Gayatri

Spivak illuminates the immense complexities of sexual rights and human rights in general

86 Ibid, 47-48. 87 Scott Long, "When Doctors Torture: The Anus and the State in Egypt and Beyond," Health and Human Rights 7, no. 2 (2004): 124.

Righting Wrongs | 31 Taushif Kara | 260301196 as part of a structure, an institution in which it is necessary to critique but that is impossible to dismiss.88 Awwad recreates her thesis specifically in terms of “gay rights”:

“…the production of the gay subject is an enablement that must be used even as the violence of its production is critiqued and renegotiated, because it cannot necessarily be written off in the righting of wrongs.”89

Does this entail that when Hilary Clinton speaks at the United Nations claiming gay rights are human rights, that objection to that very claim condones repression? Did the colonial intervention produce a global space in which only choices condoned by the conditions of colonial modernity can be made? Perhaps. But as Spivak maintains, even while we cannot “write off the righting of wrongs”, we must constantly renegotiate and interrogate that righting process. Just as with the equally problematized notion of development, we are caught at the top of a self-imposed hierarchy, remaining poised to right the wrongs of the rest, as Spivak would say, until a future “when wrongs will not proliferate with unsurprising regularity”.90

88 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, "Righting Wrongs," South Atlantic Quarterly 103, no. 2/3 (2004): 523-581. 89 Awwad, “The Postcolonial Predicament”, 333. 90 Spivak, “Righting Wrongs”, 564.

Righting Wrongs | 32 Taushif Kara | 260301196

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