Decolonizing Activism; Deactivating Colonialism

The pressure to choose

As per this Calvin and Hobbes strip, I suggest that the terms of a conflict, that is, the way that a conflict is described, is actually a composite part of the conflict itself.

For example:

To describe a conflict as, say, having to choose between condemning homophobia (and thus alienating a swath of, hypothetically, more sexually-conservative Muslims) or condemning Islamophobia (and thus alienating a swath of atheist or anti-religious gays).

The above description in itself invites the reader into identifying with variations of the "Good and Ethical Subject".

I am either the Good and Ethical Subject who sides with the gays,
or the Good and Ethical Subject who sides with the Muslims.

It is not enough either, to propose the following rhetorical alternative to this conflict, which is the existence of the gay Muslim (who acts as a mediator between the aforementioned parties).

i.e. "What about gay Muslims?!"

Those who are invested in the terms of the conflict will bear no such thing.

"He has to choose!" both fundamentalists will proclaim,
"He has to choose between his homosexuality and his Islam!
Homosexuality or Islam!
He cannot do both!"

**

In a way, both the gay Islamophobe and the Muslim homophobe are caught in the same ideological trap: of Ethnocentrism, or the belief that it is my own collective (which absents the ideological Other) that is more worth protection from intrusion or harm than yours or more accurately, theirs.

In other words, it is not that Muslim homophobia or gay Islamophobia should be uniquely addressed as issues (true as this assertion may be in particular contexts), but that they are both expressions of a common commitment to ethnocentrism, a universal human propensity that, while developmentally appropriate in certain contexts, becomes dangerously pathological when mired in an inability to be creative in an increasingly pluralist and diverse world... Ethnocentrism must be adequately attended to across the board, in all of its variations. 

Part of dealing with this is to actually notice the ways that organising around minoritarianism (i.e. identification with the oppressed minority) is always contingent, in part, on an unwitting capitulation to the terms of this disenfranchisement. 

Far from blaming the victim, I intend to point this out as a route to true freedom. As a gay man, the way for me to truly eradicate homophobia is not only to target it and address it in others (e.g. the homophobic Muslim), nor even only to address it in myself (i.e. dealing with my own internalised homophobia), it is to also truly cultivate the possibility for a larrikin betrayal of my own identity, a sincere abandonment that intends no nobility but can simply bear a privileged and detached witness to the categorical lie.

My true freedom, as a gay man, is in my ability to cease to be a gay man.
Not in ceasing to desire other men, or having sex, but in ceasing to allow these particular desires or actions over-determine the formation of my personhood, at the same time that I would advocate it should not be over-minimised or repressed either.

Incidentally, of course, this is an incipient narrative in the evolution of gay discourse, as it evolves its own "queer" trajectories, its postmodern leanings toward the blurriness of sexual categories (not only of homosexuality and heterosexuality, but also of manhood or womanhood, of the boundaries between what-is-sex and what-is-not-sex). In this case, going more deeply into my "gay-ness" can actually present the means by which I can reject its original terms and liberate new possibilities for coalition and freedom.

Note:
This strategy is not the same as the abandonment of commitment to people or communities, but only an abandonment of the drive to see people, including our own people, only as variations of "Self" or "Other".

Perhaps, to radically re-envision people as always "Both Self And Other"...?

"I am a gay man and not a gay man. I am homophobic and not homophobic. I am not Muslim... and I am Muslim!"

Or perhaps, more accurately, "Neither Self Nor Other"...

"I am neither a gay man nor not a a gay man. I am neither homophobic nor not homophobic. I am neither not-Muslim... nor am I Muslim!"

And this is what liberates me to be free to be contextually and communally relevant, as new and emerging forms and definitions of community are constantly defining and redefining what it means to be a People...

...I radically embrace my brethren, through my abandonment of "brethrenism".

***

To put it another way, freedom can be liberated not in the attempt to answer seemingly irreconcilable situations or bridge seemingly irreconcilable communities (e.g. between the Islamophobic gays or the homophobic Muslims), but, as per the Calvin and Hobbes strip, to deny all terms and conditions.

Every ideology and every community can be a straw target for intellectual game-playing...

I suggest a form of a-politicism (i.e. "this is meaningless and impossible to answer"),
an abandonment of identity politics...

...to embrace the impasse,
the impossibility,
the irreconcilability,
the restless nature of the dualism,
to reject its ideological premises,
to make room for something quiet and more enduring to take its stead...

...Relationship. Friendship. Comradeship.

Class struggle.

Decolonisation.

***

I look forward to that time when we have the strength, the conditions, and the collective will to properly reject even this aforementioned claim, to liberate more inventive, relevant inquiries and insights.

Middle Class Organisers in Low-Income Communities

"Often the paid organizers in low-income communities come from professional middle-class backgrounds. I worked as a community organizer for many years, and the class dynamics can be tricky. Nearly everything I know about poverty and urban politics, I learned from members of groups I staffed. I loved the relationships I built with people on their stoops and around their kitchen tables.

Seeing people move from less to more powerful was exhilarating. Here's one story. I was trying to persuade tenants at an apartment complex to come to a City Council hearing. Knocking on doors, I asked one woman, Donna, to come, she said no, I pleaded. Finally she said she would attend but she absolutely wouldn't say a word, because she was terrified of public speaking. She sat at the hearing listening to testimony, until a tenant leader mentioned the lack of sidewalks between their apartment complex and the shopping area. At that point Donna leapt up, saying, "Ooh! I have something to say about that road!" She took the mic and told a hair-raising story about how a car came within an inch of hitting her child while she was pushing a stroller and trying to get 3 kids down to the bus stop. The City Council voted on the spot to appropriate money for a sidewalk — something that wasn't even on their docket of proposals. Last time I visited that city, I walked that sidewalk, grinning the whole way.

And of the five tenant groups I organized, three now own and run their own apartment complexes as permanently affordable housing, so I feel I made a real difference.

But it's a tricky relationship with many pitfalls, the relationship of middle-class organizer to working-class community.

I've encountered groups that were basically fronts for one staff person, usually a leftist white man. The low-income members were basically his mouthpieces. All their speeches were written by him, using their legitimacy as low-income people to spread his ideas. In the power balance between the staff's expertise and the members' knowledge of the community, those groups were way off balance.

Grassroots members get crucial information funneled through the organizer, information they need to make decisions. The staff can convey their biases either consciously or unconsciously in how the information is presented. I remember presenting choices to tenant groups about models of tenant buy-outs — decisions that would make all the difference in the future of their homes — and trying not to let my own opinions show. If I had concrete information about why one option would be better for them, that seemed fair to share, but if it was just my own preference, I tried not to betray it. No doubt I didn't always succeed, as my doubts and enthusiasm crept into my tone of voice"

- Betsy Leondar-Wright,
Program Director, Class Action