Given the recent upset that has erupted over Calgary’s latest Pride festival, a tempest in a teacup if ever there was one, it might be worthwhile to give a moment’s thought to what we actually have in Canada and, specifically Calgary, compared to other parts of the world.
Organizers of the Pride Parade in the Serbian capital city of Belgrade recently had to cancel it following threats from Serbian nationalists and the government’s inability to protect participants.
The parade, which was supported by the Ministry for Human Rights and Minorities, would have been the first GLBTQ rights march since a 2001 rally, which ended in violence after police failed to protect participants from attacks by football hooligans, many of which were aligned with ultra-nationalists and other right-wing reactionaries.
Organizer Dragana Vuckovic stated on national television that Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic “handed us a paper informing us that the parade (in central Belgrade) was not possible because the risks were too high.”
Organizers cancelled the event, planned for September 20th, after police suggested it take place in a field across the Sava and Danube rivers, away from downtown Belgrade. The parade was originally to have been held outside the philosophy faculty in the centre of Belgrade.
“The message of equal rights is transmitted symbolically when a group on the margins is able to parade in the centre of the capital,” she said, in rejecting the alternative site.
Meanwhile, the ultra-nationalist Serb Popular Movement 1389 hailed the cancellation of the march as “a great victory for normal Serbia.”
The group said it would hold its own demonstration at the philosophy faculty three hours before the Pride event would have begun, for a “non-violent and non-deviant popular Serb rally.... In our city, infidels and Satanists will not pass.”
President Boris Tadic warned against “threats and violence” and creating an “atmosphere of chaos” adding, “the state will do everything to protect people, whatever their national, religious, sexual or political orientation, and no group must resort to threats and violence, or take justice into its own hands and jeopardize the lives of those who think, or are, different.”
The Serbian parliament passed an anti-discrimination law in March 2009 banning discrimination against homosexuals, despite opposition from nationalists and religious leaders. However, gay men and lesbians are still denied the right to marry, adopt children, and other rights enjoyed by heterosexuals.
In previous years, Muscovite lesbians and gay men faced similar reactions when Moscow Pride, headed by Nikolai Alekseev, was banned by Moscow’s mayor, Yuri Luzhkov; the events went ahead anyway.
Pride events from 2006 to 2009 were, as in Belgrade, marred by violence perpetuated by ultra-nationalists, skinheads, and members of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Moscow’s Chief of Security justified the 2006 ban by saying “all public expressions [by gays and lesbians] must be banned...they violate our rights. We have our traditions. Lots of religious groups told us that they were against this gay pride.”
The chief mufti of Russia’s Central Spiritual Governance for Muslims, Talgat Tadzhuddin, even went so far as to openly advocate violence towards any participants, stating, “The parade should not be allowed, and if they still come out into the streets, then they should be bashed. Sexual minorities have no rights, because they have crossed the line. Alternative sexuality is a crime against God”.
Russian Orthodox leaders echoed his views, declaring that homosexuality is a “sin which destroys human beings and condemns them to a spiritual death”.
Alekseev and his LGBT Human Rights Project, the parade’s organizers, along with several Russian and foreign supporters, including members of the European Parliament and the German Federal Parliament, attempted to hold two successive protest rallies after a court upheld Mayor Luzkhov’s ban on the original event. That event was to commemorate the 13th anniversary of the decriminalization of homosexuality in Russia, which was originally criminalized under the Communists.
There were two main confrontations, the first of which occurred when activists approached the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Red Square to lay wreaths. Hundreds of protesters, including skinheads and ultra-nationalists, beat and kicked the participants, while throwing projectiles and chanting anti-gay slogans.
There were several reports of police standing by and failing to protect the participants. Volker Beck, a member of the German Parliament who was there in support of the parade, was attacked and punched in the face. No arrests were ever made, at least not of the attackers. Several of the organizers were arrested, however.
The 2007 parade experienced similar attacks and a similar lack of response from Moscow police.
An anti-gay activist kicked Italian Member of Parliament, Marco Cappato. When he demanded police protection, the police detained him. British gay rights veteran Peter Tatchell and Alekseev were also detained. According to Tatchell, “...[T]he police were standing nearby and did nothing. Eventually they moved in. I was arrested while my attackers were allowed to go free.”
Apparently not one to give up easily, Alekseev and the LGBT Human Rights Project again applied in 2008 for five different permits.
Despite international attention and past condemnation of the Moscow authorities’ handling of anti-GLBTQ protesters and treatment of pro-GLBTQ participants, and the intervention of Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev who phoned the Prefecture of the Central Administrative Area of Moscow insisting he authorize the events, Mayor Luzkhov again banned all 155 planned events.
Organizers took their cause to the European Court of Human Rights after they lost in Russian courts. The European Court found in their favour.
Moscow Pride 2008 occurred in two locations.
The first was a “flashmob” protest lead by Alekseev and thirty other activists in front of the statue of Tchaikovsky, the famous Russian composer and a known homosexual.
At the second event, they unveiled a banner from the third floor of a building across from City Hall, which stated, “Rights to Gays and Lesbians. Homophobia of Mayor Luzhkov should be prosecuted.”
This time the effort paid off. They were able to have their flashmob protest without being assaulted or arrested because it was not known where they were going to be and, in the second instance they avoided clashes with anti-GLBTQ protesters as they were 3-stories above them.
The 2009 event, held on May 19th on the eve of International Day Against Homophobia (IDAH), was again banned by Moscow’s mayor. Moscow officials issued statements stating that “protesters” (participants in the event) would be treated “toughly” and face “tough measures” by the Moscow police. Alekseev refused to be intimidated and announced the parade was a “risk that must be taken, otherwise the homophobes and authoritarians will win.”
The protest was originally announced as taking place at Novopushkinsky Skver in central Moscow, but organizers changed the location at the last moment to the Vorobyovy Gory viewpoint near Moscow State University, a popular spot for wedding photographs, in order to avoid queer-bashing attacks and, one suspects, to make a statement in favour of same-sex marriage.
The activists were arrested within minutes, despite being filmed by television crews, including the state-financed Russia Today. As he was being arrested, Tatchell was quoted as saying “this shows the Russian people are not free”. He also stated the Moscow police troops were, again, “needlessly violent.”
Belarusian activists who attended the event in solidarity were freed at about 2am, however Alekseev, in violation of Russian law, was held overnight and interrogated for hours.
In light of such events, does it not seem a tad...petty...for us to engage in the back-and-forth bitch-fighting that has come to characterize our own Pride celebrations?
Of course there are issues that need to be addressed and resolved. No Pride event escapes these things. It is important the issues be discussed in a rational and constructive atmosphere and the temptation to engage in high-school shenanigans resisted.
When, as a member of the Calgary Lesbian and Gay Political Action Guild (CLAGPAG), I and several other members of its Steering Committee created Calgary’s first Pride Rally and March in 1990, we had approximately 150 people attend. Many of them wore paper bags over their heads as it was assumed, correctly, there would be massive media coverage. We at CLAGPAG never envisioned Pride as anything but a celebration of who, and what, we are and had hopes it would eventually evolve into something of which Calgary could be proud.
Certainly, in 1990 there was resistance to having such a “radical” event in Good Ol’ Calgary by some elements within the community, even though Pride events had been held in other centres for 20 years. We expected that, and respected those whose own fear, internalized homophobia, or just wanting to live their lives without undue attention, caused them to react against it.
The GLBTQ community, as I frequently pointed out to media types who inquired what ”the community” thought about a particular issue, is not a monolithic entity that thinks alike or responds the same way to anything.
Rather, it is a dynamic, evolving community of individuals from a myriad of backgrounds and it is our own life experiences that dictate our perception and responses, or sometimes our reaction, to situations. That is perfectly normal.
It is easy to forget what it is to be gay, bi, lesbian, trans, queer, or two-spirited when living in a world that, quite often, would just as soon see us dead as not. We are lucky to live in a country like Canada, or a city like Calgary...try being openly gay, bi, lesbian, queer, trans, or two-spirited in a small rural community and see what it gets you.
Yet enormous amounts of energy are spent on bickering about who spoke to whom, who was approached to sponsor Pride and who wasn’t and why, who’s included and who isn’t, corporate sponsorship or not, and on and on. An example of a clash of egos and agenda if ever there was one.
We can all be guilty of that, of course. After CLAGPAG handed the torch of putting on Pride Week to what was then Project Pride, there was some reaction when the then-chair of Project Pride announced in a meeting that henceforth the event would be the Calgary Gay and Lesbian Pride Parade and Street Fair, not “Rally and March”. Fair enough.
The reaction occurred when he said, “Pride is about celebration, not politics...” Imagine a group of gay and lesbian activists, firmly informed by Gay Liberation politics, hearing that! Of course it was about politics! It commemorated Stonewall, for crying out loud. Not about politics? Heresy!!
That year, 1993 I think it was, the Calgary Pride Parade and Street Fair attracted well over a thousand people, especially since Project Pride changed the route from downtown and over the Langevin Bridge to Bridgeland Community Centre, to down 12th Ave SW, up 8th Street to 17th Ave SW and right through the middle of what in later years came to be known as the Red Mile.
CLAGPAG’s Bridgeland route barely attracted anyone but a few friends and family along the side of the street and surprised residents of Bridgeland seeing our ragtag March from their balconies. Project Pride’s ambitious plans of parading right through the middle of the Beltline and having the Street Fair outside next to Connaught School, and refocusing the event as a celebration rather than a political rally, was absolutely correct. The numbers proved it, and continued to do so year after year, despite some pretty god-awful weather.
Despite significant differences in philosophy and points of view, CLAGPAG, and the individuals who comprised its Steering Committee, continued to support Project Pride and their Pride events and were proud of our role in creating them in the first place.
To see what is going on now in some parts of the community fills my heart with pain. This is not what it was supposed to be.
