Zizek argues that the irony in the position of the 'revolutionary' is tragic: "first you sacrifice everything for the cause, then you are rejected by this Cause itself, finding yourself in a kind of empty space with nothing, no point of identification, to hold on."
But is this not the precise problem with the blanket understanding of resistance produced almost mechanically by so-called 'activists' and wannabe 'revolutionaries'?
I am reminded here of the case of Algerian women being an integral aspect of anti-colonial resistance, who were promised by their male counterparts equal rights in the new, free Algeria. The men argued that women's rights cannot come until the entire society is free from French control. The result: Algeria gained independence, and women were re-colonised by this newly independent state. Inevitably, not everyone was free in the newly freed Algeria, including the very nucleus of the resistance: women.Unfortunately, the infamous case of Algeria does not stand alone in its hypocrisy. Revolutions, revolutionary activities, and resistances, as Foucault once famously said, breed new forms of domination.
In a particularly heated debate with friends, we were discussing the issue of gay rights in the Middle East. The topic arose when 'I am an Arab' was reading Joseph Massad's Desiring Arabs, a chronicle of Western fetishization of Arab sexuality, from torture in Abu Ghraib to the torture of the Palestinian resistance by the Zionists in the 1930s and '40s.
Joseph Massad, whose arguments place him as the bastard lovechild of Partha Chatterjee and Adolf Hitler, makes a thoroughly well-researched and complex, but nonetheless detached, unrealistic, dangerous, and quite frankly highly irrelevant argument concerning what he refers to as the 'Gay International': the universalisation of the Western gay identity and its colonisation of same-sex identities that exist around the world, particularly in the Middle East.
Massad is not incorrect in his main argument: the gay identity arose within very specific Western understandings of sexuality, and has since—through globalisation, westernisation, and colonisation, penetrated (hah!) contemporary postcolonial society. Nonetheless, while his hypothesis may be correct, it is the remainder of his argument that has led to debate amongst my various quasi-intellectual networks, composed of myself and 'I am an Arab' in London, and 'Mama Superior' and 'Fabastian' who are based in the Arab world. I should probably note that this particular post is less of an attack on this specific issue of 'gay rights' but more of a critique of this method of thinking about resistance/rights/domination/imperialism in some parts of the Far Left. For a much better critique of Massad's pathetic excuse of a book, refer to Brian Whitaker's scathing review of Massad's views here (http://www.al-bab.com/arab/articles/text/massad.htm).
First, lets briefly describe Massad's position: as mentioned, gay identity is a Western concept; the attachment to this identity is Western, and alien to the Arab world. Discounting the reality that homosexual activity was not only widespread in the Islamic age but also widely accepted, Massad has a point in saying that the identification of oneself as gay also involves inheriting a very Western identity of what it means to engage in homosexual activity. Fine.
But the reality is, and this is a problem I find in most postcolonial critiques of identity, be they from Massad himself, or those that I have more respect for such as Chatterjee or Mahmoud Mamdani, is that while the hypothesis is interesting, it nonetheless becomes quite irrelevant, or even dangerous, when put into practice. The problem arises when one begins to ascribe postcolonial blather to policy prescriptions. More specifically, I (along with Mama Superior and Fabastian) took issue with what seemed like Massad's 'justification' for the arrest of dozens of gay men aboard the Queen Boat in Cairo in May 2001. For Massad, the arrest, torture, and humiliation of these men is almost justified since they were partaking in Western acts, and, what the Egyptian government has claimed is their prostitution to Western men. So suddenly the Egyptian government views being (allegedly) sodomised by Westerners as a legitimate excuse for torture, humiliation, and arrest? The irony here is that this is the Egyptian government of Hosni Mubarak I am talking about, perhaps the quintessential example of the sodomisation of the Arab world by Western imperialism.
But let's take this seriously for a second. Since when is partaking in Western forms of sexuality a crime? Last I checked, most Arabs, both elite and subaltern, have adopted Western heterosexual dating rituals. Why haven't the countless heterosexual brothels, nightclubs, bars and cafes,been raided by authorities for their Western conduct?
It is so easy, in trying to resist the many injustices that have been perpetuated against the Arab world by the West—particularly the last 100 years since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, that we excuse the irrational behaviour of something by deeming it 'legitimate' cultural resistance.
'I am an Arab', while quite progressive in his delusions, was nonetheless mistaken in thinking that the arrest was legitimate under the banner of resisting the appropriation and colonisation of Arab identity (including sexuality) by Western identity. But when does resistance become domination? Is resistance through the humiliation, torture, arrest, and ridicule of a people ever justified? And if it can be, does that make resistance something to aspire to?
Massad, who continues to gain weight sitting in his comfy chair in Columbia University, seems to think so. At the end of the day, the ultimate enemy is the West in all its forms, and colonisation, in all its forms, is bad. Yes, perhaps there needs to be a more critical look at the identity of sexuality in the Middle East rather than an uncritical acceptance of the 'Gay International', to coin a phrase. But seeing life simply as 'Arab' and 'Western' completely blanks out the entire spectrum of cultural amalgamations, adaptations, and transformations that occur when two cultures collide, which is not necessarily 'bad'. Seeing culture as static, as something that must necessarily be protected, is perhaps the main reason Arabs continue to be the least progressive and most backwards 'culture' in the world.
When does culture become more important than human rights? And while I do accept the argument that the current understanding of human rights comes from a very specific [Western] reading of the human 'experience', I similarly reject the argument that this is an excuse to discount it in non-Western contexts. If we are to accept that cultures differ, we should also be ready to accept that a declaration such as the UDHR will be interpreted differently in different contexts. One's focus on the Western values inherent in the Declaration only reveals that one is privileged in not having their own human rights under threat. I bet you the Tutsis of Rwanda did not sit there contemplating whether the Universal Declaration of Human Rights applied to their particular cultural context as they were being hacked to death by Hutus.
Of course, this is not limited to simply the 'gayz'; women's rights have faced similar arguments: that the feminist International has dominated the experience of what it means to be a woman, and therefore all the bitches worldwide have to conform to these ideals or be labelled 'backwards' or 'under threat'. Again, these arguments are true, however, as Fabastian correctly highlighted, they should provide the beginning of the debate, rather than the conclusion (which is what Massad suggests).
After explaining my position, 'I am an Arab' resorted to the arguments made by his patriarchial anti-colonial ancestors, arguing "quite frankly, I agree, but there are more important 'resistance' that need to be done before anyone can start discussing gay rights". Algeria much?
If we can't accept that resistance must be, by its very nature, fragmented and open to continuous divisions, re-articulations, discoveries, then this resistance will only produce even more domination. And under that banner, perhaps continued imperialism is better. After all, better the devil you know.
