At the AWID Feminist Forum held on November 2008 in
I was at the session too. But, I don’t think those Moslem women were very aggressive, they just asked questions in a good way that should be answered by LBT women. It was a discussion session, so everyone has rights to ask and discuss everything. For me, it’s just common questions coming from heterosexual people that I often get too as a lesbian woman. It should be understood that sometimes heterosexual people they just don’t understand about LBT women's issues, so sometimes it sounds homophobic, so all we need to do is giving an explanation to make them understand. In the reality, there are a lot of LBT women who also don’t understand about their sexual orientation and gender identity and there are also a lot of LBT women who are homophobic. It needs a long time and process for some LBT women to accept and understand their sexual orientation and gender identity. So, it can be understood that heterosexual people also need time and process to understand about LBT women issue.
To be honest, I was so disappointed with the several LBT women who participants in that session who gave a bad response by showing anger, did not listen to the questions, and some of them spoke so loud which I think it sounds so emotional. That was shocking to me. It shows that they are not giving their respect to the session. I know that people have rights to be angry, but if we want to do advocacy and campaign and make a positive social change towards LBT women, we can not make it with anger. We can not expect heterosexual people understand about our issue, if we never try a good communication process with them.
I think the LBT women need to do the POLITICS OF FUN. We all know that Ellen DeGeneres who is an out lesbian artist and she is
I’ve been a source person in several forums and talked about lesbianism. I’ve got exactly the same questions so many times. All I need to do is tell the participants to ask any kind of questions without feeling afraid of hurting me. And I try to make it FUN. One example: I participated in the Indonesian and East Timor Youth Feminist Forum which was held by JASS in 2006 in
Actually, as a Moslem lesbian woman, I really want to answer all the questions of the session, but I did not have a chance to do that because everyone talked and it was so crowded. If I had a chance to answer the questions, I would like to say:
“The essence of Islam teaching is to humanize the human being, to respect and deeply honor human beings without seeing them from their race, skin color, social status, gender identity or sexual orientation. God only sees the difference of human beings based on Taqwa (goodness), and talking about Taqwa, the only one who has prerogative rights to appraise is God, not human beings. The only thing human beings can do is to compete with each other in making goodness as God says. As long as their sexual orientation and gender identity are used for sharing love and not for violence, so that is the main purpose of Islam teaching.”
Written by : Kamilia ManafInstitut Pelangi Perempuan (Indonesian Youth Lesbian Center)
www.pelangiperempuan.com
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3 comments:
I totally agree with you on how yes as lebian women we tend to be on the defensive instead of really answering peoples question and teaching them about LBT issues.Another fact i guess that happend at that session was that even as African lesbians , we had to deal with a lot of backlash not only for being black and lesbian(considered a western ideology) but also have suffered a lot because of the hate crimes especially in Southern Africa.Although a few people got emotional, i think one of the panelists , Donna, did a great job in making people realise that its all just a learning process and people just need to understand and be willing to answer all questions withou taking offence.Another aspect i guess that got people talking was that why is it that at an international conference like AWID where i guess the assumption is that most people are open minded and inclusive to all minority groups represented, then you would get people asking questions like that. I guess most of the anger came from that angle that if you do get into certain spaces where there is a diverse group of people you should at least respect the diversity.
It was indeed a learning experience for me being in the AWID. I got quite a lot of shocks on realising the power issues that were at play, and at times attitudes I believed were intolerant of differences. However, I appreciate the experience and the better understanding I got from that. It made me look inward, and now always try to check myself and my attitudes towards other people and issues.
It's really great to get some comments about this issue.
What I learned from participating some world conferences that every participant has different background and different knowledge on some issues.We can not generalize that all the feminists all over the world have the same portion of knowing all issues.
For example, the sexuality studies on Netherlands or Canada must be much more progressive compare to Arab Countries or South East Asia. Because the sexuality issue in Arab Countries or South East Asia is very taboo and sensitive because of social pressure. So, we can imagine that feminists in Arab countries or south east asia don't talk a lot about sexuality issue. Because of that they have less information about sexuality issue especially LBT issue. It should be understood that when you meet feminists from Arab or South East Asia they will give you questions like that.
But if you meet feminists from Canada or Netherlands, I don't think they will give questions like that. This is what I mean about understanding the diversity on the world conferences, we have to know and understand other people's background too.
Talking about the hate crime, I think it is not only difficult situation for LBT women in Southern Africa. It is global issue that it means happen in some countries too. Even in an area like San francisco, some people said that it's a heaven for LGBT but hate crimes still exist there. In some moslem societies background for example in Indonesia; we have to deal with the attack (using weapon and stone!) from fundamentalist groups. And we also know that if you are LBT women in Iran you will get death penalty.
I do also want to explain that, it is also not easy being a LESBIAN and a MOSLEM. You will get double discrimination just like black lesbian. We know that after the tragedy of 9/11, the ISLAMPHOBIA is rising up.
What I am trying to explain is that we are just in the same difficult situation, but if we are feminist we have to put ourselves as a survivor not a victim. Being survivor means struggling for the social change by doing some creative strategies. And yes, for social change sometimes we need to control our anger, emotional and understanding the diversity :)
in solidarity,
Kamilia
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