[lbo-talk] Re: Maoist cleanup drive hits Nepal gays

andie nachgeborenen andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com
Sun Jan 7 15:18:26 PST 2007


I'm not sure I follow your analogy to the Duke rape story. I am not aware that any official or even unofficial body of any part of the Duke University community ever adopted as official policy, and enforced that policy, the rule that women women who attend Duke social events should be raped. The situation with Maoists and gays is quite otherwise. Not that Maoists ever adopted as official policy that gays should be raped, but for many decades it was official Maoist line that homosexuality was bourgeois decadence, to be suppressed, proscribed, and punished.

Nothing is lost by saying that at least some members of the world left are disturbed are concerned by credible reports that this policy is being perpetuated in Nepal, and that we condemn homophobia, regard it as opposed to the goals of socialism and human liberation, and urge the Nepalese revolutionaries to support GLBT as well as other kinds of sexual liberation.

I underline, and I am sure that Brian agrees, that such a statement, even if phrased in terms of giving full credence to reports of homophobic repression in Nepal, is not meant to condemn any efforts by Nepalese at attaining social justice and freedom. A condemnation of homophobia is not a condemnation of a revolution (even one that has severable, to use a legal term, sorry, being a lawyer and all) homophobic elements. It is a condemnation of the homophoboc elements. I am sure that Brian does not oppose the Cuban revolution, for example, but calls on Cuba to retain the progress it has achieved while abandoning homophobia.

All that said I reiterate my own skepticism that self-styled Maoists at this date can achieve much of anything good. But that's an issue for another time. Even assuming they can, it's our obligation to call on them to eschew gaybashing. I am quite puzzled that you find this problematic.

--- Yoshie Furuhashi <critical.montages at gmail.com> wrote:


> On 1/7/07, andie nachgeborenen
> <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > In this case, however, the story is initially
> > credible, because (as I said before) it is in
> accord
> > with the tradition Maoist and Stalinist line on
> gays
> > as well as with the norms of lots of third world
> > modernizing societies.
>
> Have you been following the Duke rape story?
>
> > I don't think that in
> > such circumstances judicious withholding of
> judgment
> > is called for -- further investigation is called
> for,
> > certainly.
>
> Well, what's the point of investigation if we are
> already supposed to
> make judgment without it?
>
> I'd err on the side of caution in cases like this,
> since nothing is
> gained by haste. One, if it is true, there's
> nothing we can do about
> it _immediately_, since it's happening halfway
> around the world, and
> we are not funding the CPN(M). Two, if it is false,
> our acting as if
> it were true does damage to the Nepalese, including
> the gay and
> lesbian Nepalese.
> --
> Yoshie
> <http://montages.blogspot.com/>
> <http://mrzine.org>
> <http://monthlyreview.org/>
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>
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