weston culture » politics

When Pride is Not a Sin: Prejudice and Pride exhibition at the Museum of Brisbane

trish — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 18:17:33 +0000

Damnation Poster International Lesbian Day 1993? On display at Prejudice and Pride exhibition, Museum of Brisbane, 2010, poster by trishweston

I wrote this a few months ago after seeing the heart-swellingly wonderful Prejudice and Pride exhibition in Brisbane. The exhibition finishes on 17th October 2010 …

I had a few hours spare while in Brisbane on a Saturday afternoon recently and decided to check out the Prejudice and Pride exhibition that’s currently on at the Museum of Brisbane.

Not only was I captivated for hours by this amazing exhibition but I also came away having rediscovered my own pride – for the people who have lived according to their own truth in a culture that has often violently repressed their authenticity.

I am of course talking about all the gays, lesbians, transgenders, queers and every other permutation of other-sexuality and gender you with to throw under the GLBT umbrella.

The exhibition explores the GLBT history of Brisbane through stories, flyers, magazines, letters, photos, videos and other ephemera. It’s not easy being different but throughout all the items collected here, I saw the common thread of people standing up and saying, “This is who I am. This is how I live.” I could only imagine the courage it would have taken to be gay in sleepy old 1950s Brisbane – when homosexuality was still considered a sexual deviancy. (We are talking pre-Kinsey). And yet folks did.

I was beautiful. It is beautiful.

The personal is still political

On the same weekend I visited the exhibition, I saw Nick Douglas’s film People, Parties, Pride & Politics. Nick’s film explores DIY culture and activism in GLBT Brisbane and the impact of decriminalisation in 1990. So once I got to the exhibition I was quite sentimental for a life I used to live, where I belonged to a community, where I felt appreciated and loved, where I got to use the skills and talents I had (as well as develop a few unusual ones – spray painting anyone?) and where I could be myself. (Well, at least if I wasn’t in the company of the PC Police…)

The exhibition was personally touching for me as some of my posters (above) from the period were on display. These were posters / artwork that had been accidently thrown out in one of my house moves and so to see them again just brought back so many memories.

There was something very special about that time and that community. Homosexuality had just been decriminalised in Queensland and this major victory had me believing that I could indeed make the world (or at least our little corner of it) a better place.

But I also appreciate that I was able to experience the joy of belonging to a vibrant, exciting community and part of something that was bigger than me. It’s made me wonder how I can create that vibrancy and sense of belonging in my life now.

If I take a moment to look, I see it is there – albeit in a different form. The players may be different but those communities still exist. I still get to discover new talents – mostly legal nowadays. And most importantly, I still have the belief that my actions can contribute to the world becoming a better place.

Pride is not a sin

A few years ago I came across a reference to pride as a negative emotion (see Power vs Force by David Hawkins). I really wrestled with that as a concept, because for me, pride is a positive. It’s about believing you are as worthwhile as the next person. But our culture insists on loading it up with religious baggage – giving it a ‘deadly sin’ status and insisting that it is merely a precursor to an ignominious fall.

However, after spending time with the stories of the Prejudice and Pride exhibition, I knew I could trust my experience of pride. The feeling I had on leaving the exhibition was overwhelmingly positive. I didn’t think myself better than anyone else. I had merely glimpsed what it means to be human and feel worthwhile.

Happy International Lesbian Day!

Ahh, there was a time when you could win awards for being a lesbian. Miss Stray Cat trophy award to Ms Gai Lemon 1992.

Pushing buttons.

Dykey Bridge, West End, early 1990s

Does Fiji deserve Pacific pariah status?

carolyn — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 01:29:51 +0000

Fiji Time – that wonderfully elastic concept which makes a mockery of Western schedule fetish – doesn’t apply to the country’s politics. Events there seem to run at warp speed.

On Thursday April 9, the Fiji Court of Appeal ruled that the 2006 coup that installed Commodore Frank Bainimarama as leader was illegal. The next day, Fijian President (and Bainimarama ally) Ratu Josefa Iliolu sacked the Appeal Court judges, installed himself as head of State and abolished the constitution. He also ruled out any elections until 2014, thus cementing Bainimarama’s rule as Prime Minister. Fiji has had four coups in 20 years, and this is the second time the 1997 constitution has been displaced.

The Australian government is not happy about this state of affairs; the question is, what should we do about it? Institute trade sanctions? Refuse visas to Fijians associated with the army or government? Kick Fiji out of the Commonwealth? Oh wait; we’ve done all those things before and they didn’t work.

Now, I’m not one of those people who believe democracy and human rights aren’t relevant to any society outside our own. The current Fijian government has shown its contempt for the people and helped cripple its economy way before the current recession hit everyone for six. Police and military brutality are rampant and the institutional racism against Indo-Fijians is disturbing (though, strangely enough, Bainimarama has championed the Indo-Fijian cause).

Australia should condemn Iliolu and Bainimarama’s actions in the strongest terms. Treating Fiji as THE delinquent of the Asia-Pacific block is another matter, which I think is hypocritical and counterproductive.

We’ve hung out with bad boy dictators before and been happy to overlook their behaviour as long as they acknowledged us (President Suharto of Indonesia). We’ve sucked up to dictators who have ruled out having any elections ever (Chinese premier Hu Jintao, probably Kevin Rudd’s real political soulmate). For years we pledged to follow to the ends of the earth a President (George W Bush) who thought his country’s constitution was pretty expendable. Why should Fiji be a special case?

Maybe the Australian government got jealous of New Zealand’s status as self-appointed conscience of the Pacific. Maybe Queensland – which, like Fiji, produces idyllic islands, sugar and synapse-melting rum – lobbied to get rid of the competition.

Or maybe we have just decided that one badly-behaved country needs to be made an example of, and it might as well be one without natural resources or a large market for Aussie products.

I reckon this is a shame, because Fiji also has some qualities that could make it more receptive to the carrot than the stick. Compared to some of the neighbouring countries, it’s peaceful. For a poor country, Fiji has relatively high levels of education, literacy and skills. Lastly, it has cultural and sporting ties to Australia.

Hell, they really like Australia; no matter how many travel warnings we issue about them, visas we deny them or drunken expats we exile to their shores in return for superior rugby players.

Here’s my fantasy alternate reality Fiji foreign policy: demand elections now and reinstate the constitution, and in return they get

favoured regional trading partner status.
large-scale, official Australian government partnerships to train them in policing, infrastructure and health
Aus government grants for Fijian manufacturing industries. If we aren’t going to have a manufacturing industry any more, I’d like to see it go somewhere close and mutually beneficial
a chance to get dual citizenship (of course, the Fijian government would have to allow this too!)
guaranteed Australia-wide distribution of Fiji Bitter beer. I’m happy to volunteer my services now to promote this excellent endeavour.

Seriously, wouldn’t it be better to engage with the government and political system they have, rather than the one we’d like them to have? Surely that would be better than having to send troops in once the country has degenerated into a failed state.

Guest blogger Carolyn Ride spent one month in Fiji in 2008, which here on Weston Culture qualifies her as the resident Fiji expert. Hey, that still makes her more qualified than Eddy Groves was to run hundreds of childcare centres Australia-wide.

Is Torture Ever Okay?

carolyn — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 11:46:06 +0000

Torture: Ticking time bombs and slippery slopes
A Talk by Dr John Janzekovic

Embiggen Books, Noosaville, 25 March 2009

John Janzekovic discusses the ethics and politics of torture at Embiggen Books, Noosaville.

We’re not all recession-immune luvvies thinking about nothing more taxing than our next Restylene appointment in Noosa, you know.

Last night, about 30 thoughtful and concerned folk of all ages got together at Embiggen Books in Noosaville to hear Sunshine Coast University professor John Janzekovic talk about torture. Specifically, is torture ever ethical, and are we in the West complicit in torture when we don’t take steps to prevent it? (i.e in Abu Ghraib or ‘rendition-friendly’ countries)

What followed was a lot of lively, intelligent and occasionally frustrating debate – just what I like as a politics junkie. Dr Janzekovic has published extensively on military history and made some very thought-provoking comments. Basically, he refuted the idea that torture can prevent the jailed terrorist from activating the ticking bomb (it’s a fantasy scenario) and he said any ‘civilised’ country practicing torture is on the slippery slope to non-civilisation.

However, some major questions remained unanswered (by audience or speaker). If you don’t use torture, what DO you do to prevent terrorism? If torture is a slippery slope towards brutality, is excessive leniency a slippery slope towards advertising our vulnerability to our enemies? As one older audience member commented, we’ve been discussing the ethics of this issue for decades; where are the answers?

I agree. I respect some of Dr Janzekovic’s opinions, but he had no alternatives to torture as a means of information gathering besides ‘do something else’ and ‘trust in the UN’. Do what else? Trust in the organisation with the shameful legacy of Rwanda (and many more), which can’t even get ‘civilised’ countries to agree on a Women’s Rights Charter or ratify the International Convention on the Rights of the Child?

Like so many political discussions I’ve had recently, this one seemed to be unhelpfully split between both personal-political lines and left-right lines, and sadly this is usually the road to hypocrisy.

The It’s Personal defend torture as just something people do, so what are you gonna do about it? Or it’s something you’d do if you had enough reason to do it, so what’s wrong with it?

My confession: I can imagine myself torturing someone for any of a possible hundred reasons. Molesting children. Setting wildlife-destroying bushfires. Stoning women. Making my girlfriend unhappy. Kicking my cat. Thank God the KGB never recruited me when I was a communist, since I appear to be so prone to political violence. Sure, communism’s dead now, but don’t EVER kick my cat.

The political Right defend torture as the ultimate crime prevention tool, happily in line with human nature. At their extreme, like Dubya, they seem to think anyone who doesn’t believe in God, Guns and Money deserves a life of solitary confinement.

The political Left are righteously offended by torture – as long as it’s practised by the US, Australia or Israel. If it’s practised by China or Iran, we should engage in mutually humanistic and non-offensive dialogue with them. And forget, say, intervening in Zimbabwe. As one man said, “The Chinese wouldn’t like that”. Settles that then.

So there’s my problem with torture debates. So few people admit their own weaknesses that would lead them to support torture. So few people admit their own hypocrisies. So few people want to design alternatives, even those folks smart enough to design them.

Despite this, credit due where credit must be due. The folks at Embiggen Books have created a real space for fascinating debate and discussion in Noosa. They made informed and interesting points in the general debate (gender! religion! thank you!) They have a non-fiction bookclub which discusses this stuff, and quantum physics, and humanism, where most bookshop-related talks stick to the safest and most middle-class topics (like renovating in Tuscany).

I’m a bookshop girl, having worked at five of them while you slackers were off studying and building careers. I was at first dubious about Embiggen being a nonfiction bookshop, but now I’m sold. Like Red Books (RIP) in Brisbane, it’s a cauldron of ideas, about more than the sale. I can’t wait to go and hear the talk on humanism in a month, which will almost balance out my being vaguely nice about Christians last month.

Carolyn Ride is a writer, editor and is frequently embiggened by a noble spirit.

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Farewell to lesbian feminism

trish — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 03:02:18 +0000

Guest blogger, Carolyn Ride, is wondering whatever happened to old skool lesbian feminism.

Of course all you sisters went to the International Women’s Day Rally on the 7^th with the theme “women demand justice” didn’t you? Don’t lie, you didn’t. Let’s face it, the lesbian feminist wombyn stereotype wearing a labrys necklace and waving a placard is dying if not dead.

Lesbian feminists had their glory days in the 80s and 90s. They ran communes and women’s dances. They showed women could do anything. (If they were sound engineers or graphic designers, they showed women could charge other women anything too). They ran the women’s refuges and crisis centres when no-one else cared, wrote weirdly wafty alliterative books – thanks Mary Daly – and even out-argued socialist women in meetings.

As a major force in non-mainstream politics, lesbian feminism had to end. Most took the personal is political thing way too far; even debating whether lesbians should give up their boy children to avoid “putting energy into men”. Having spent so much time at the coalface of gender relations, they overgeneralised women as victims. Lastly, I think they just got co-opted as they got older. It’s hard to argue your lesbian feminist purity from a six-figure government adviser job or a tenured professorship.

If you are one of the few lesbian feminists left flying the lavender flag, thanks for paving the way for the next lesbian generations. But now it’s time to accept change. Young dykes and queer women want explore polyamory and porn or gay marriage and gaybies for the same reason you wanted to escape it: to have the choice. Get to know some of them. (You might meet them at the IWD breakfasts women do now instead of rallies). Just remember: bisexuality is not a disease, sex trade doesn’t automatically equal slave trade, and intellectual rigidity is not intellectual rigour.

Of course, this play nice rule applies to the opposition too. If you’re one of those so-called radical queers who whinge that sex-negative lesbian feminist types are oppressing you, toughen up! It was probably your mother who made you feel ashamed of your desires. Sheila Jeffreys is not your mother. And yes, you may feel a negative vibe at some queer event from some disapproving 60-something women in fisherman’s pants from Lismore who don’t “get” the queer, femme, switch, boi, burlesque thing you’re performing as genderfuck. That’s not discrimination. Getting beaten up on the train home by angry yobs; being blackballed by future employers because that’s your identity on your facebook page: that’s discrimination.

Again, get to know some of them. They might not all be so conservative after all! Try to be indulgent about the disapproval thing. After all, the generation after you will at best find you quaint and at worst rebel against everything you stood for.

Carolyn Ride is a writer and editor … who still has a copy of Lesbian Nation on her bookshelf.

What next? A lesbian Prime Minister?

trish — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 01:16:59 +0000

Why, yes, actually.

While the rest of us are still shaking our heads, amazed that the US actually has a black president, Iceland is pushing the social engineering envelope with the world’s first openly-gay Prime Minister being sworn in this week.

According to The Independent, “former air hostess”, Johanna Sigurdardottir, will take the reigns of a caretaking government until elections are held in two to three months. The popular pollie (with a 73% approval rating) was first elected to parliament in 1978 and it seems her role over the next few months will be to rebuild trust in her country after its recent economic collapse.

So, even in the nice progressive Scandihoovian countries, it’s the women who have to come in and restore civility when the boys break their toys and piss everyone off. Some things don’t change.

Anyway, it’s good to see the laydeez out there doing what they do best ie saving the world.

Now, where’s Penny Wong’s phone number? We need to have a chat.

Thanks to Neatorama

Farewell to lesbian feminism

Barack-ing for Obama

trish — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 02:04:14 +0000

Guest blogger, Carolyn Ride, gets the vapors while watching some political thingy happening on the other side of the world…

Call me schmaltzy (because I am, plus it’s a great word), but it was hard not to be inspired by Wednesday’s inauguration of 44^th US President. 1.8 million people were there in Washington to watch President Barack Hussein Obama address the nation from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Billions more worldwide watched it on TV.

Of course, you know this already. Like me, you might have watched the whole thing on TV, then all the news reports showing the highlights. I have to mention it again because I was amazed at how Obama’s speech, while not perfect, touched all the bases for where people are at (in America and the rest of the world). Yes, I know it was written by a speechwriter, not Obama himself. Yes, the frequent references to God, God bless us all, Scripture and God bless America were a little creepy. They were for me at least. I’d probably be the atheist in the foxhole. Thank someone (but not God) there was one little mention of unbelievers being part of the nation.

I still got chills though. I was reminded that day why, despite all the evil America commits at home and abroad, the country’s ideals ring out to billions of people around the world. Obama’s speech reaffirmed all those ideals while acknowledging the crises of economy, environment and war that threaten them. Even the all-American emotive patriotism was a welcome change from the endless realpolitik we’ve slogged through the past decade.

Luckily for me, I can always find something to whinge about in the midst of the best circumstances. My whinges are the following:

The bloody awful boring celebrity guest appearances. On Wednesday, you could have looted all the swankiest neighbourhoods in LA and no-one would have noticed. Why? Because they were all in Washington doing bad covers. No, I don’t want to lean on Mary J Blige. When I hear political speechmaking, I don’t want it to be from Tom Hanks. And though I love U2, someone should have told Bono it wasn’t his inauguration.

I’m glad Obama, not Clinton, is the new President. I’m no personal fan of either of the Clintons, but there’s no denying that the criticism of Hillary during the election was as much sexist as policy-based. Now Michelle Obama is the first lady. Though she’s an Ivy League graduate ex-lawyer who used to be Obama’s mentor, it seems her most important decision so far has been the outfits she wore to the inauguration and the inauguration balls. Now there’s all sorts of breathless commentary about how she’ll redecorate the White House. What kind of mother is she? Is she sufficiently devoted to Obama? How will she, like, stay so stylish? It all makes me nostalgic for Bill Clinton’s promise that you ‘get two for the price of one’. Finally, America has shown it’s ready for a black President. I don’t think it’s nearly ready for a female one. I doubt it’s even willing to let Michelle Obama use her formidable guts and intelligence for more than invigorating dinner parties. Maybe the US will one day follow the lead of more gender-blind countries. Like, um, Pakistan (one female President who, if not assassinated, might have been re-elected) or the Phillipines (two female Presidents). Hell, even Ireland has had two female Presidents, and they had the most repressive abortion laws in Europe.

Oh yeah. Rick Warren, who compared being gay to pedophilia, leading the pre-inauguration prayer. Bridge-building is admirable, but that was a bridge too far.

Overall, though, almost nothing can ruin my warm inner glow from the inauguration of America’s 44^th President. Just give Michelle a real and important job, tell the Hollywood hangers-on they’re on salary cap from now on, and deliver America and the world from this recession in an environmentally responsible way. That’s all I ask of Obama really. I’ll keep Barack-ing for him.

Carolyn Ride is a writer, reviewer and editor who loves to vacuum.

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The Global Financial Crisis is My Fault

trish — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 01:45:39 +0000

Oh, and it’s yours too.

Guest blogger, Carolyn Ride, comes clean and reveals the real players in the economic meltdown. It’s ugly folks but the truth must out.

As the storm clouds of the global financial crisis were gathering in the US in early 2008, and we watched in alarm as the map showed said storm ready to flatten the rest of the world, the experts started looking for who to blame.

I have to say, a lot of, like, fully unfair stones were cast at those unsung heroes of the financial coalface (or, in the case of our mineral exports, the literal coalface). These bankers, non-conforming lenders, stockbrokers, retailers, wholesalers and insurers, whose only mission is to provide their customers (us) with superior, internationally competitive and best practice products were accused of heinous crimes. Over-borrowing. Over-lending. Falsifying their reports and covering up their losses. Spending more profligately and unwisely than an oil sheik at a gold bathroom fittings warehouse.

Fortunately, wiser heads eventually prevailed and now we’re hearing financial commentary that’s not afraid to take on the real architects of all this global pain. Me and you. We wanted it all. We wanted to own the giant McMansion in the burbs and the tree-change weekender powered by positive thoughts. We wanted the plasma screen TV and the Tivo and the King Island brie and the closet full of Made In China clothes (timed perfectly to fall apart in one month or when fashions changed, whichever came first). We wanted to make two grand a week digging polluting coal out of the ground and to get flown to the city for R&R by long-suffering employers. We were perverse with Thing Lust, feverish with Affluenza, and controlled only by forces even darker than our own impulses: Tween girls and toddlers drunk on pester power.

It took real courage for a brave few – economists, politicians, a couple of Wall Street Warriors – to speak out, hesitantly at first, to say that the crisis was regular people’s fault and not the experts unjustly singled out simply because it was their job to manage money, market cycles and consumer demand.

The debate had been hamstrung by muddled thinking. Should an organisation whose business is loans be forced to take the blame for encouraging the financially unstable to get into debt, then using their repayments to play (and lose in) the short-term money market? Should the government of, say, Australia, be criticised for basing all their plans for prosperity on selling raw materials instead of encouraging clean industry and knowledge economies? Should CEOs be forced to pay back their megabonuses when their companies fail, or even get prosecuted for falsifying corporate reports?

Plenty of bitter, jealous types like Ross Gittins of the Sydney Morning Herald thought so, not even caring how such sniping could damage a leader’s self-esteem. Lucky there was the example of the corporate and government response to global warming to guide the experts, or we might still be ruled by Tall Poppy Syndrome. “As a giant agribusiness corporation, we would be so hurting if you made us go green. We’d have no choice but to make the economy suffer. Anyway, it’s not our fault. It’s those yobs who drive old cars, do five loads of washing in a top-loader and leave their lights on”. Cue “10 things you can do” awareness pamphlet sponsored by agribusiness corporation and a government-sponsored “dob in a V8 driver” hotline.

Sure, as individuals we are learning to be more aware of our patterns of excess and debt. But that hardly means we have learned the real lesson, which is “It’s ALL our fault”. Our Federal Government took valuable time at the end of last year away from bailing out car manufacturers and success-phobic childcare centres to hand some of you cash money to ease the financial stress of Christmas. All they asked in return is that you do a little bit of meaningless consumption – I mean, do your bit to support the economy. Yet so many people (I’m ashamed to say, including me) didn’t do the big Christmas shop. Some even, as the financial analyst on SBS News said with disgust, put their handout into debt repayment or savings.

So I take responsibility for all the credit-fuelled consumption frenzy that led to the economy overheating and the subsequent crash. I also take responsibility for saving when I should have started spending. As should you.

On behalf of ordinary people who should have done better, I apologise to the people who simply found themselves at the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong bag of money in their hands – ours. I’ll apologise to you in person should we ever meet at the traffic lights as I’m washing the window of your Lexus for small change.

Carolyn Ride is a writer, reviewer and editor who has generously contributed this article in the hope that I will stop nagging her about doing her own blog. I would love to provide a link to her other writing, but, she doesn’t have a website. (Or a blog!) – TW

Yeah, but I have my own team of scribes chiselling my words of wisdom as we speak. Check again in ten years – CR