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rfmcdonaldA letter-writer to The Toronto Star advanced some interesting arguments yesterday.
This sort of thing isn't terribly new. Back in the 1980s, for instance, it was well-known that the people protesting the deployment of short- and medium-range nuclear missiles in central Europe were either Communists or profoundly misguided and confused people. No one of right mind, clearly, could decide that the expansion of NATO nuclear stocks directly in front of a tottering superpower run by paranoid old men ruling people who (in turn) themselves also wanted to live was a good idea. To name a single example.
But the letter-writer's position, advanced above, is something that I hadn't thought through before. Of course, people who protest against the actions of a particular country should, if they happen to (ahem) possess a certain personal characteristic that might not be welcome on the other side(s), be strongly advised to reconsider their positions! They shouldn't judge on the basis of minutiae as the facts of the situation, or evaluations of the justice of a situation. Rather, they should throw their support behind the side that side that would do the least harm (or, maybe, do the most good) to them.
Isn't it so wonderfully clear? Thus, for instance, I cannot criticize the France that introduced the PACS back in 1999, or the United States that hosted the Stonewall Riots and ended up playing a leading role in international GLBT organizing and theory, or, for that matter, the Canada that recognized same-sex marriage in 2005 and had seen rapid improvements long before that. What was I thinking? Of course the West, individually and wholly, is beyond criticism! What could I have been thinking? I'm so excited: I'll be so much less critical of the idiocies of the world that it won't be funny!
Of course, this principle is applicable across the board. Thus:
- Why, Germany takes nearly as many Jewish immigrants as Israel! How dare you, of all people, criticize it?
- You criticize your country, but you should consider yourself lucky. Can you imagine what things would be like for you if you lived, I dunno, in Liberia or Sierra Leone?
- How can you say that you have a right to protest against British moves in Iraq, you of all people! You live in the country of Emmeline Pankhurst, but look at Iran!
- Give it up about the residential schools, already. It happened and just go and move on. It's not like this country was a Guatemala, you know.
Ultimately, we can be told to be thankful that we've not getting pickaxed in the head like some poor person in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge so why be so uppity, and do you know what? That will be completely true! Things weren't nearly as bad as we thought!
There are some people who might call the letter-writer's position marked by the sort of soft bigotry that comes about when once-suppressed people start to be free agents again, or that she's completely unable to imagine that protesters might be involved in a difficult moral calculus on multiple fronts (does anyone really think that the Palestinian territories as a whole would be more lesbian-friendly than Israel as a whole?).
But that's not me! Who would? Only a silly person who denied the reality that all of us, especially those of us who might stand out, must take the position proper to our persons, that's who. Why protest the necessary constraints of the Great Chain of Being?
On Saturday as I watched the lesbian march in downtown Toronto, my initial feelings of being proud to live in a city that celebrates diversity and tolerance took a dark turn, as two women walked by with a sign that read, "Stop Israel Apartheid."
While I am a strong believer in freedom of speech, and using festivals that celebrate diversity and inclusion as a platform for other human rights issues, I found it terribly ironic that of all places for such a sign to appear, it was in a parade on Pride weekend.
I would be shocked if these women were aware of Israel's achievements concerning gay rights.
Israel is one of only four countries in the Middle East where same-sex relations between consenting adults are not illegal. In fact, in most other Mideast countries, it is a crime punishable by flogging, stoning and hanging.
In the Israeli military, homosexuals serve without any separate restrictions or distinctions.
Israel is the only country in the Middle East and all of Asia to recognize gay marriage.
Every year Tel Aviv and Jerusalem hold gay-pride parades.
I wonder how these women think they would be received if they were to have moved their parade into the Gaza Strip or West Bank.
This sort of thing isn't terribly new. Back in the 1980s, for instance, it was well-known that the people protesting the deployment of short- and medium-range nuclear missiles in central Europe were either Communists or profoundly misguided and confused people. No one of right mind, clearly, could decide that the expansion of NATO nuclear stocks directly in front of a tottering superpower run by paranoid old men ruling people who (in turn) themselves also wanted to live was a good idea. To name a single example.
But the letter-writer's position, advanced above, is something that I hadn't thought through before. Of course, people who protest against the actions of a particular country should, if they happen to (ahem) possess a certain personal characteristic that might not be welcome on the other side(s), be strongly advised to reconsider their positions! They shouldn't judge on the basis of minutiae as the facts of the situation, or evaluations of the justice of a situation. Rather, they should throw their support behind the side that side that would do the least harm (or, maybe, do the most good) to them.
Isn't it so wonderfully clear? Thus, for instance, I cannot criticize the France that introduced the PACS back in 1999, or the United States that hosted the Stonewall Riots and ended up playing a leading role in international GLBT organizing and theory, or, for that matter, the Canada that recognized same-sex marriage in 2005 and had seen rapid improvements long before that. What was I thinking? Of course the West, individually and wholly, is beyond criticism! What could I have been thinking? I'm so excited: I'll be so much less critical of the idiocies of the world that it won't be funny!
Of course, this principle is applicable across the board. Thus:
- Why, Germany takes nearly as many Jewish immigrants as Israel! How dare you, of all people, criticize it?
- You criticize your country, but you should consider yourself lucky. Can you imagine what things would be like for you if you lived, I dunno, in Liberia or Sierra Leone?
- How can you say that you have a right to protest against British moves in Iraq, you of all people! You live in the country of Emmeline Pankhurst, but look at Iran!
- Give it up about the residential schools, already. It happened and just go and move on. It's not like this country was a Guatemala, you know.
Ultimately, we can be told to be thankful that we've not getting pickaxed in the head like some poor person in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge so why be so uppity, and do you know what? That will be completely true! Things weren't nearly as bad as we thought!
There are some people who might call the letter-writer's position marked by the sort of soft bigotry that comes about when once-suppressed people start to be free agents again, or that she's completely unable to imagine that protesters might be involved in a difficult moral calculus on multiple fronts (does anyone really think that the Palestinian territories as a whole would be more lesbian-friendly than Israel as a whole?).
But that's not me! Who would? Only a silly person who denied the reality that all of us, especially those of us who might stand out, must take the position proper to our persons, that's who. Why protest the necessary constraints of the Great Chain of Being?
