One thing that was obvious at the meeting of the Coalition for Free Speech on Monday, June 7: there is no party line.[rssbreak]
I mean that in two ways:
The more than 300 people who descended on the 519 Church Street Community Centre in the wake of Pride’s ham-fisted clampdown on Queers Against Israeli Apartheid want Pride to go back to its political roots. It has to be more than a just a fun and sun-soaked party.
And very few were prepared to say that there was only one appropriate political response to Pride’s recent actions.
The meeting capped a day of protest against Pride’s decision to stop QuAIA from using the words “Israeli apartheid” while marching in the huge parade. In the morning, 22 “refusniks” – including lawyer El-Farouk Khaki, this year’s honoured dyke, Jane Farrow, and artist Richard Fung – dumped awards they’d received from Pride on the Pride office steps.
Those who gathered at the 519 later that night were disgusted specifically by the attack on QuAIA and, more generally, by the corporatization and depoliticization that has transformed Pride over the past decade.
The big question – especially for someone like me, the curator for Proud Voices, Pride’s literary stages – was whether there’d be a call for a boycott. Would the meet constitute one big push for everyone to drop out of Pride? As it happens, no.
As the room filled, the organizers invited attendees to submit ideas for actions to stations set up around the room. Four different strategies were proposed: raise the issue at Pride events change the Pride board make sure the censorship issue is brought to Pride’s human rights committee create an alterna-Pride march and/or general festival.
Speakers, including original Pride founder Amy Gottlieb, talked about Pride’s profoundly political roots. The first march in 1981 followed the massive bathhouse raids that galvanized the queer community.
Representatives from Queers Against Israeli Apartheid emphasized that no one from Pride has explained to the group exactly how its activities or positions constitute hate speech, the charge that prompted its suppression. Richard Fung said there’s been no formal investigation of QuAIA by the city, Pride or anyone else.
Later, when I check in with Pride executive director Tracey Sandilands about the reasoning behind Pride’s decision, she says via email that in meetings with the city, “the city produced documentation clarifying the ways in which their policies were being contravened. By allowing reference to a country of origin in a derogatory fashion, we were in contravention of the anti-racism, access and diversity policy [for grant recipients].”
But Mike Williams, from Economic Development, Culture and Tourism at City Hall, which gives the culture component of Pride more than $100,000 a year, said he’d prefer to hold off further comment until after the executive committee meeting Monday (June 14).
At the coalition meeting, after the initial keynotes, a roster of activists from groups supporting the coalition outlined their various strategies. One of the most moving speakers was Suhail Abualsameed, from Salaam Queer Muslims, who, citing Pride’s claim that it was responding to complaints that QuAIA made Pride-goers feel “unsafe,” asked, Who feels unsafe now?
Though many artists have stepped away from the Pride roster, unable to bear the idea of supporting censorship – Keith Cole, who was slated to host the Alterna-Queer stage, and DJ John Caffrey, to name just two – others, like the queers of colour from Blockorama, who have felt dismissed and diminished by their experience with Pride, said they intend to operate their Pride stage and rock the politics.
The openness was staggering, emblematic of a political maturity that’s rare in a group of fuming activists. Farrow moderated the meet with humour and skill, and there was none of the bitchy bickering that often characterizes gatherings where people have different ideas about what to do next.
The range of opinion reflected the spectacular diversity of people present. I have never seen such a mix – people of all skin colours, queers old enough to be at the first Pride in 1981 and others who’ve only experienced the festival as one big corporate bend-over.
Look for passionate responses of all kinds – from civil disobedience and freer speech at Pride to a pointedly political alternative march.
The coalition is also working on developing a symbol, something that can be worn by supporters on or outside the Pride site who believe Pride and the human rights of everyone around the world are inextricably linked.
Whatever happens, the response will be huge. There were more people at the meeting than there were on Toronto’s streets for the first Gay Pride march nearly 30 years ago.
susanc@nowtoronto.com
