Free Speech Outrage

2010-03-23T15:01:57Z

To the Board,

So Pride Toronto has allowed itself to be bullied by fringe activists. In the name of free speech, you are willing to allow groups to promote hatred. In the name of free speech, you are willing to risk the security of the parade. In the name of free speech, you are willing to act against the will of the House of Commons and the Ontario Legislature. Do you truly understand what it means to target a minority group, and what the consequences are? People get bashed and murdered when they are hated. They get gassed and bombed. Two levels of government have condemned the use of the word ‘apartheid’ as odious and hateful. Why do you prefer the opinion of activists who’s MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE in a gay pride parade is the deligitimization of Israel? While gays are being bashed even in our own village, while our neighbours to the south still struggle for equal rights, while our brothers and sisters all over the world are being thrown in jail, slashed or killed by the state, while we dare not hold hands in most of our own country, and continue to be ostracized by our own families, those with the most energy, use it bash the country with one of the best gay rights policies in the world! Does this make any sense at all? Do you honestly believe that this vocal minority is representative of the greater community?

Black Mark on 30 years of RESISITANCE!

2010-05-22T09:38:02Z

What are you not getting here? QuAIA did not violate any of the policies, criminal or otherwise that you say you uphold. In a meeting with the city we were told that we did not violate their anti-discrimination policy, so what gives? Making people ‘uncomfortable’ has been at the core of Pride’s existence from the beginning…everyone was uncomfortable with drag queens, dudes in leather, dykes on bikes, TNT, Aids Action Now and all activists! You seem to think your job is to ‘run a festival’ but it is to be responsible to a community that fought long and hard to get here. perhaps none of you on the Pride board actually never did that work and rested on the laurels of our hard work. Shame on you, you have utterly failed your community. I am ashamed to be associated with any of you that call yourself queer and/or proud. Censorship, corporate sponsorship, Israel lobby, I smell a bunch of neoliberals and neocons running Pride Toronto. The community wants you all gone, we will rise again and begin again.

Here are some words from lawyer, activist and poet Kaushalya Bannerji:

Dear Pride Toronto,

as a long-time queer and activist in the queer and lesbian of colour communities I am deeply disheartened and offended by your censorship of Queers against Israeli Apartheid (QUAIA). Pride owes its existence to the courageous resistance of LGBTQ and 2-Spirited people who fought and struggled to decriminalize homosexuality and queerness in all its wonderful glory so that we as diverse queer communities could take to the streets and make public our love, our desire and our politics.

Your ability to sell out the principles of Pride and its history as a festival of resistance and rage against social, political and legal injustice is depressing and shameful. As for ED, Ms. Sandilands, it is bewildering at the very least—and offensive at best—to think that some one can advertise her personal life as standing in for her politics. Who cares if you had a mixed -race relationship in apartheid South Africa if you continue to support the human rights violations and indeed war crimes of the Israeli state against Palestinians in both Israel and the Occupied Territories.

I am saddened that under your leadership , the Pride Toronto committee has neither the courage nor integrity of the ANC in apartheid South Africa nor the respect for human rights in Canada to stand up for the inclusion of progressive voices critical, not of Jewish people, but a Zionist military state subsidised and hugely supported by the United States and Canadian governments.

Have you forgotten that here too you hold your march and corporate love-in on occupied territory that is available to you only because of the history of Canadian-state sanctioned genocide? Perhaps you should think about making connections between progressive forces because LGBTQ rights in Canada may have a short-lived victory if our provinicial and particularly, federal government have their way.

Criticising Israeli Apartheid is not a hate crime but rather an act of love for social justice, and the human rights of those who have suffered for 60 years as civilians and dispossessed, namely the Palestinians.Today it seems the love that dare not speak its name, is the one expressed by Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, that is—love for humanity that is suffering in the name of a Zionist and U.S-led alliance, in which Canada hangs on the coat-tails of U.S-foreign policy.

If you wish your Festival to be timely and relevant, you must move with the times and with social movements, not corporate agendas and the abandonment of both queer Israelis and Palestinians who deserve a future that is demilitarized and a negotiated solution to the problems of homeland and dispossession they currently face. Had Pride shown the same apathy toward the rights of lesbians and gays to civil marriage, we would not have won victories that enrich our country and further the cause of human and social justice.

Sincerely,

Kaushalya Bannerji

Poet