“I’m queer, too, you stupid f**k,” screamed the Joburg Pride board chair, Tanya Harford, as she lunged at me. Her attack was in response to my colleagues and me telling her that we were part of the LGBT community. She was trying forcibly to remove us from the road where about 20 of us (almost all black and working class) had just attempted to stop Joburg Pride and demand one minute of silence to remember those who had been killed because of their sexual orientation and gender expression. Far from making her stop pushing us around, our claim to queerness appeared to enrage her further, to the point where she grabbed my neck and seemed keen to detach my head from it; three kicks later, one from a passer-by and two from my comrades, she released me.
If there had been any doubt in our minds it became clear then that queerness as identity cannot constitute a common political ground. If we had had any illusions that queerness, and the acquisition of formal LGBT rights, in South Africa had started to bridge racial and socioeconomic divides and that we were all part of the LGBT community (in the singular), here is incontrovertible evidence that we are dissected along class, race and gender lines now more than ever.
Joburg Pride organising committee claims that neither they nor Joburg Pride are “political animals” and that they merely provide a “platform”, create an “event” for others to display their politics; I would argue that any forum that claims to work on behalf of LGBT communities, which include black lesbians who are raped and murdered because of who they are and how they look, is in itself a loud and screaming political statement. Joburg Pride board does not have the right, let alone the magical skills, to distance Pride from its inherently political nature. Perhaps, then, in addition to saying that Pride has been de-politicised away from a vision of social justice, it is important to point out that Pride’s politics, as currently formulated, follow the money.
The commercialisation of Pride and the emphasis on fostering “gay tourism” and developing the “gay market”, which are evident in Joburg Pride’s current manifestation, necessarily rely on homogenising diverse communities and their needs and concealing the poverty and marginalisation faced by the majority of the black LGBT population in South Africa. This is from Joburg Pride’s website under a section titled “The Gay Market”: “Gays and lesbian [sic] like to be respected and spoken to as a community in their own right. This reflects acceptance of their lifestyle and a progressive approach; absolutely vital to being taken seriously by this group of trend-setting, astute and often affluent consumers.” It is not by accident that gays and lesbians are converted from “a community” to “consumers” in the space of two sentences. You can be forgiven for thinking that the Joburg Pride website is a portal for distributing advice to businesses who want to tap into this niche market of “trend-setting” consumers who just happen to be gay. After all, doesn’t equality mean equal rights to consume, just as freedom means the freedom to starve? That some gays consume “luxury items” while others cannot afford three meals a day is just a detail that does not rhyme well with “open happiness” (yes, Joburg Pride is “presented” by Coca-Cola, which relieves millions of poor people around the world of their fresh drinking water before flooding their corner shops and supermarkets with unhealthy drinks).
Proof that there’s more than one LGBT community was clear where the paraders and others ended up after marching to “Protect our Rights” (Joburg Pride’s 2012 theme that cannot help but sound ironic now; perhaps we should retrospectively re-title it “Prospect our Rights”). You would have seen the trend-setters inside the venue (which you cannot enter if you have your own food and beverages, including water, because Joburg Pride makes money from the sale of foodstuffs in it) and outside the venue, you would have seen thousands of mostly black lesbians, gay men, and bisexual and transgender people and their friends, consuming the food and drinks that they had brought with them and which they could afford. So much for Pride as a space for diversity and equality.
Is it a coincidence that the rise of Pride celebrations across the world has proceeded alongside the spread of neoliberalism, unfettered free-market global capitalist expansion and the systematic dismantling of social welfare structures? Is it a coincidence that all but one of us demanding one minute of silence at Joburg Pride were black, that all those who assaulted and intimidated us were white and that only black people were physically attacked? Is it a coincidence that this aggression towards demands for politicisation, so easy to surface and acted upon with such impunity and arrogance, comes to the fore at a time when the government seems to have handed over the running of the country to corporations and when millions of workers receive starvation wages?
If it is, it’s a planned coincidence. It is not news that capitalism is inherently opposed to diversity and equity, and that a politics based on identity seeks to flatten difference among us and erase those of us who are not gay in the approved way. It may come as news to Joburg Pride organisers that Pride belongs to all of us regardless of class, race, gender and sexual orientation. And it is old news that queers who are socioeconomically marginalised and who demand the re-politicisation of Pride must urgently make alliances with other working-class and unemployed people rather than seek the approval of those members of the LGBT community who tell them to go back to their lokshins (locations). As the poor (including the poor queers) in South Africa get poorer, it’s perhaps time to evaluate what we have to be proud of and which rights need protecting.
maybe next year you can ask the organising commitee BEFOREHAND to incorporate your cause into the march?
White people don’t like surprises…. LOL
or “disorganisation”
Lay a criminal charge against Harford!
You also have no right foisting your politics onto others. If other homosexual people don’t want to follow suit with you, then that’s their right.
Pride has morphed and evolved over the years – if you want to have a say in how it turns out, then the best way would be to get involved in the planning at the outset, not so?
Just a question: did you approach the organisers to include this political statement as part of the parade beforehand? Or did your political statement include hijacking the culmination of the work of the organisers?
I am not disagreeing with the issues you seek to highlight – just your means, which seem little thought-through.
What exactly makes these folks so proud of themselves? Would that also be applicable to someone who goes to the beach in the nude, or is that unacceptable exhibitionism? What these people do in private is their own business, but forcing others to not only accept their strange behaviour, but to regard them as heroes of note and icons is very galling at best. Nothing to be proud of at all, in fact as a country whose morals and ethics have gone straight down the tube, we should be ashamed and not proud at all. The one area we excel in apparently is that we have the 6th biggest dicks on the planet. The judges obviously never saw the spear!
1in9 showed up Gay Pride for what it is: a commercial venture that will not include controvertial politics in case they lose their sponsors.
Ai Peter Nel, You know what we should be ashamed of? Patriarchy, heteronormativity, heterosexism and corrective rape.
I think Carlin summed pride movements up quite nicely:
I saw a slogan on a guys car that said “Proud to be an American” and I thought “What the **** does that mean?”
“I’m fully Irish, and when I was a kid I would go to the St Patrick’s Day parade and they sold a button that said ‘Proud to be Irish’, but I knew that on Columbus day they sold the same button only it said ‘Proud to be Italian’, then came Black Pride, and Puerto Rican Pride. And I could never understand national or ethnic pride, because to me Pride should be reserved for something you achieve on your own.
Being Irish isn’t a skill, it’s a ****ing genetic accident.
You wouldn’t be proud to be 5’11″. You wouldn’t be proud to have a pre-disposition for colon cancer.”
This is the best piece I’ve read on Thought Leader all year
Yes to the repoliticisation of Pride!
@Peter Nel: By whose measure is the behaviour of ‘these people’ strange?
A jolly and fun and organised parade, requiring some serious negotiations with Traffic dept and other authorities, was disrupted. No-one, regardless of what you stand for, has the right to do that.
It is rude, and smacks of a culture of entitlement. With poster 5c I am saying: arrange beforehand.
As much as I am gay and would have supported your cause before you acted hooliganistic….I now am hestitant.
Let me get this STRAIGHT: 1. You knew about gay pride. Even I knew about it. 2. You do know how parades and marches work. It generally involves a fair amount of mobility by the participants. 3. You tried to stop a public march that was planned in advance, that you knew was planned in advance, to politicise LGBT issues at an event that is particularly about raising awareness for and showing support for LGBT issues.
You were calling for a minute of silence at a boisterous public event. Excuse me if I am surprised that you are acting surprised. Secondly, this boisterous public event had exactly the same motive as your minute of silence, namely to highlight LGBT issues. This is one of the most obvious cases of setting yourself up as a martyr I have seen all year.
i am absolutely disgusted by what has unfolded since last saturday .
tanya and her cohorts have to be charged with assault .
those who are defending the actions of tanya and her thugs are just as shameful as her .
2 decades after apartheid was apparently dismantled we still live in a country that has no respect for all it’s citizens . a country that is scornful of the poor , the dispossessed , black women as demonstrated by the pride organizers are still viewed as something to trample on , something to be violent towards as clearly demonstrated by various members of the pride board . tanya we demand your resignation and we demand that each member of the board be relieved of their duties . you are not fit for purpose !
I think the minute of silence was a brilliant idea, but was there no way you could have arranged it upfront with the organisers? By the time you were all lying down, communicating face-to-face was difficult and I have no doubt that lusty organiser thought you were all straight interlopers taking the piss.
Seems that everyone these days is making demands…a simple request might have worked better.
And yes, it’s devastatingly sad that like sets upon like when there are so many different types setting upon each other as well. It seems to me that the day was marred by a series of sad coincidences.
I’m very proud of your statement. I think the fight for LGBT rights should not be limited just to sexual rights but convey the opposition to any form of oppression we LGBT people suffer.
Seems like dignity went out the window from all involved. Suggest enrolling on Dale Carnegie training for all to discover how to win friends and influence people.
Two fairly obvious points as yet unmade:
1. Are the issues of corrective rape and the murder of black lesbians on the agenda of Pride? If so, how and where? If not, why not?
2. Whether or not 1in9 ‘disrupted’ the parade, the level of violence directed at the small group of women is the big issue. Is the organising committee ‘proud’ of their leader’s horrifying response?
Proof has been now stated on twitter that the 1in9 campaign openly tweeted whether they should go and cause trouble at pride….
Lying in the street unannounced is a call for friction… Has this solved any corrective rape issues in a jiffy or just portrayed the underlying beef this group has had with Joburg Pride using corrective rape. Marikana was already a huge example to the rest of the world of what can happen with a protest…
Like so many others I think 1in9 are in the wrong here, not the Pride organizers and I am really disappointed that they are trying to shift the blame on what was clearly a badly planned “hijacking” of Joburg Pride.
I also think it causes more damage than good for two pro gay movements to go up against each other, it defeats what Pride stands for and what 1in9 was protesting for. I suggest both organizations resolve their differences and focus on the real “bad guys” out there.
Couldn’t 1in9 use another platform to voice their plight (i.e do a gay/lesbian awareness and publicise it and mobilise people to support their cause)?
I simply don’t get why they wanted to hijack the parade and want the 1 minute of silence.
It’s like their being gay and lesbian entitles them to just barge in and do their thing, and then when they are met with strong opposition it’s okay to pull the race card. Unless I have completely missed the bus on this one….
If ppl r gonna say this isn’t abt race.. Was JhbPride part of Soweto pride? Becos if they had been part of it 1in9 wudnt have had to disrupt the parade. Fact is this…no white lesbians have been killed becoz of their sexuality so blacks being killed is really none of their business.. And 1in9 is abt to make it their business. Its abt to make it every woman.every human being’s business. #teampurple
excellent piece, dipika. thank you for connecting the dots so effectively.
I’m just gobsmacked by many of the responses here!
The right to peaceful protest is enshrined in the Constitution. *Whatever* you’re protesting. 1in9 had *every* right to be there, and to be free of violence and intimidation.
The Pride organizers had every right to turn to the police accompanying the march, and explain that they had a permit to march, and could they please remove the protesters blocking the march (which is what apparently eventually happened). They had *no* right to use violence, threats, or intimidation against people exercising their constitutional rights.
I wonder how many of those who have commented negatively have at other times condemned the violence and mayhem from other marches and protests? Marches which were probably largely made up of black people?
Let me go further: Shame on Joburg Pride. In this country, it’s not particularly hard to be white and LGBTI. Certainly, there are intolerant people. You risk losing some friends and family. But frankly, those are people that I, for one, wouldn’t want in my life anyway.
But for a person of color who’s LGBTI? A whole different story. When did you last hear of a gay white man whose head was nearly severed, as happened not long ago in Kuruman? How many white lesbians have been subjected to corrective rape?
To continue:
Pride *is* political. “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it!” is a political statement. Leaving out a significant, indeed the *majority* of the LGBTI population out of the calculus isn’t just wrong-headed, it misses the point of what Pride is *supposed* to be about.
Shame. This has to be explained by a white, straight guy?
What troubles me in South Africa, is that you are defined first by RACE, then SEX, then SEXUAL ORIENTATION. But race trumps all and the preoccupation and constant anxiety about what one’s race says about you or what other people will think it says about you tires me. 1 in 9: I get it. But for heaven’s sake – just pick up the phone before the next JHB Pride and work with, rather than against the VOLUNTEERS who organize the event. Queering the streets of JHB and having corporate sponsors saying “We respect gay clientele and are not ashamed to be associated with them” is political and damn important. I agree with one of the previous posters: This is the worst case of self-imposed martyrdom I have seen this year! Why weren’t you protesting in front of the doors of known “corrective rapists”. Remember who the enemy is. Tanya Harford is not a corrective rapist and neither are the (white, black [ yes there were many!], coloured and all other shades of) people participating in JHB Pride this year.
I do not like the turn of the article turning the issue racial.
Clearly they ambushed the parade. Black or white – voetsek! The group who ambushed were black, the ambushed were white…so what?
State your case for what it was and do not create something which it was not. Have some dignity FFS.
The gay pride march is not a political statement. It was started as a way to show gay people that they were not alone and an opportunity for the straight community to show their support. To get permission for the march to start with, was a nightmare. To now endanger the ability to obtain permission in the future is just too short sighted for words.
I very much doubt that there is a single person in the gay community who is not horrified by the persecution of their fellow humans. The problem is that you cannot hijack a cause for your own agenda. This event is to stand up and say “I have nothing to be ashamed for” it is not an event to say “come out of the closet and get raped”.
@Rich:
I commented negatively (my comment was even more negative but someone edited it, which is all I need to know about the legerdemain politics supported here):
1. Nobody denied 1in9′s right to protest. I questioned the wisdom of trying to hijack another protest. Awareness of LGBT issues is already what this protest is about. Shoving one’s own politics down someone’s throat is not, and frankly I find it completely out of kilter with the ideas of equality held by most (LGBT and straight) who support the march. If 1in9 doesn’t associate with the overall Gay Pride idea, then by all means let 1in9 organise their own protest.
2. It’s not your constitutional right to interfere with other protests. 1in9 could be viewed as interfering with another protest. Where they asked to leave and did not comply before the police got hard-handed? Again, by all means, let 1in9 organise their own protest. Let’s see how many Gay Pride supporters show up to march through their 1 minute of silence.
3. I condemn violent protest in the strongest terms on all occasions, due to my politics which supports private property absolutely.
4. Cape Town is filled to the brim with white LGBT people who’ve been thrown out of their homes at best and at worst been threatened with death by their own parents. I would not trivialise the issues that someone else goes through or try to arrange LGBT suffering from best to worst. That’s not what legal equality is about.
@Brent:
Exactly. Are we discussing corrective rape? Are we discussing the politics of 1in9? No, neither. We’re discussing the martyrdom of 1in9 protesters. To me, that spells failure.
It’s really about time that gay people started fighting each other, like every other politically organised group in South Africa, because that way nothing can be achieved and the hegemony of the status quo preserved. Bravo to all concerned!
So basically you guys tried to avoid the role and responsibility of organising a march or contributing to this one and just crashed it. How you would react if i just arrived at your party with a list of demands. Did you approach the organisers up front and ask to be included? I’m pretty sure you would be accomodated if you had done.
But there is a very big difference between food and drink being expensive and racism. I dont hear black homosexuals boycotting Nu Metro and Ster Kinekor because the popcorn is overpriced by at least 1000%. We arent allowed to take our own food either, but we all live with it and its not an afront against our economic position or culture.
Your own prejudices and insecurities have clouded your judgement and that makes me laugh. Articles like this take any credibility away that your cause has.
Tanya Harford threw away her own dignity there. Big time. Classic demonstration of how NOT to handle an unforeseen situation. She acted like a 16 year old school prefect. Appalling.