The Shareef Don't Like It

The Sunday Times carries a wonderful little piece about living as a Western white gay man in the city of Dubai.  The UAE is a country in which homosexuality is illegal, reduced to clandestine activity and knowing glances.  Yet, as this piece reminds us, it continues to attract many gay men who live fulfilling lives, and foster gay networks - as in many other Arab nations - despite the law.  The piece is (annoyingly) behind the Sunday Times paywall but if you do have access, it can be viewed here. Alex Richardson, the journalist in question summarises the environment below:

'The gay community here is secretive and close-knit. It’s not as drug-fuelled and bitchy as back in London, though apparently STDs are rife — because these dangers are never advertised, it’s assumed everybody is clean, so people are a bit looser. Unlike in Europe, where you have different groups of gays — the arty ones, the lawyers, the clubbers — here you have just one: the materialistic, body-beautiful type. They are in their twenties or thirties and have come to Dubai for escapism, money or career opportunities.'

Curiously, despite the influx of Westerners  - gay and otherwise - into spaces such as Dubai, there doesn't seem to be the pressure for change in the same way that were the UK government to turn the legal clock back to pre-1967.  I'm not sure entirely why this is but I suspect it owes a lot to the mobility of the players involved.  Rather than an all engaging homosexuality, the account of homosexuality in Dubai by Richardson matches accounts from others I've heard regarding Arab nations - including Egypt and Dubai - in which the affluent and mobile can enjoy a type of homosexuality that other sections of society don't.  Those who are working in Dubai are paid good wages, enjoy an affluent lifestyle and can always pop on the next flight the moment things start getting a bit sticky.  As long as this remains, there will be no pressure to change, and the UAE will entrench this situation as the status quo.  This, it seems to me, is deeply undesirable.

Gaddafi, Democracy and an Uncertain Future

Democracy, it could be said, is a damned odd thing.  The killing - whether an execution, incompetent man-handling or - as I suspect - an out of control mob, of former Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi today, is being hailed as the end of a dictator and the true birth of a democracy.  The son of a goat-herder advocated an alternative to liberal democracy in his Green Book.  I'm not sure how many of the people who keep making reference to it have actually read it, but I did earlier this year when the rising first began.  It starts out fairly engaging and then becomes dull, repetitive and contradictory.  For Gaddafi, democracy inevitably results in power lying in the hands of one or the few and they will - by human nature - abuse it.  He therefore advocated a complex and fluid series of 'committees' which would run a society (although really it's about engineering a conversation).  Of course, in reality, these ideas seemed to be forgotten as Gaddafi accumulated power and wealth for himself, his family, tribe and supporters.

Now he's gone.  Another Arab nation, Egypt - where the Arab Spring really caught the world's attention - swept away another old leader earlier this year.  Egypt today is run by the military - a committee of the unelected and whilst elections are promised, it seems hard to believe that the military will cease to have a role in the governing of Egypt.  In Britain, an 85 year-old unelected woman who descends from a series of tyrants continues to reign, with little power but kept in a luxurious lifestyle though taxation of her 'subjects'.  Democracy is, as I say, a damned odd thing.

It's the word 'democracy' that features on every news bulletin as Libyan crowds declare that they want 'democracy', and celebrate now Gaddafi has been bumped off, that they'll have 'democracy'.  There are strange expectations from some that this will mean some sort of social revolution.  Democracies have equal rights for women, employment protection, a welfare state, effective gay rights...well don't they?

Err, not quite.  The world's largest democracy is led by a man regarded as so left wing that many in his country - including leading elected politicians - regard his as a 'socialist' and yet he is opposed to same-sex marriage.  Obama's attempt to ensure his citizens had access the health-care triggered a collapse in support - something that would puzzle many Brit's who cherish their flawed but previous National Health Service.  Just fifteen years ago, this country had a very different legal landscape when it came to 'gay rights', and yet I don't recall John Major - who was called many things - being dubbed a dictator (although it's possible Edwina Curry may have done that in a moment of kinky sex).  We were, I think, a democracy (even with that pesky old dear ruling over us).

So, to all those who seem to have become swept up in the belief that the Arab Spring - and the recent events in Libya - signal a transformation in the rights of those who identify as homosexual, trans or who hope for new rights for women, I sound a word of caution.  Gaddafi held back the power if Islamic clerics during his years of bloody rule, and now Islamic thinkers are on the move in Libya and in Egypt.  These ideological forces are not ordinarily associated with a blooming in gay rights and the rights of women.  The mob that has been driving and shooting across Libya must be put back in the box that it came.  The rule of the mob must be replaced by the rule of law - and the ability of the provisional Libyan government to do that remains untested.  Today saw the death of a dictator, but the future for Libya remains uncertain, and potentially ripe with fear for many.

Gay in Beirut

Many thanks to Ahmed for providing this wonderful link that examines Beirut's gay community. I do not claim to know much about being gay in an Arab country but I do know that is something many international scholars seem to have in common. It's an issue that is rarely discussed at international academic events despite the examination of a variety of other cultural environments and yet as this video highlights, it really ought to be. Ahmed also used to link to the marvellous Mithly journal which examined gay Arab life but sadly came to an end - bring it back guys! You can view the video here.