UKBA bring shame on this country...

From The Guardian's website;

A Ugandan woman who was branded with a hot iron in her home country as a punishment for her sexuality, is facing forced removal from the UK.
Last week, the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, said that the coalition had ended the practice of deporting people to countries where they face persecution because of their sexual orientation.
But Betty Tibikawa, 22, who is detained in Yarl's Wood immigration removal centre in Bedford, is awaiting removal directions after her asylum claim was refused.
Human rights organisations have consistently documented abuses against gay men and lesbians in Uganda and say that it's one of the most dangerous countries in the world for gay people.
Tibikawa had just finished high school and was due to go to university in Kampala when she was attacked by three men who taunted her about her sexuality. They pinned her down in a disused building and branded her on her inner thighs with a hot iron. They left her unconscious and when she finally managed to get home she was confined to bed for two months. An independent medical report has confirmed that her scars are consistent with being branded with a hot iron.
"I can't sleep and I'm having terrible nightmares about what will happen to me if I'm sent back to Uganda. My family have disowned me because I'm a lesbian and I'm convinced I'd be killed if I'm sent home.
"I was 'outed' in a Ugandan magazine called Red Pepper in February of this year saying that I'm wanted for being a lesbian," she said. "This has put my life at increased risk."
Another Ugandan lesbian, BN, was due to be removed from the UK in January but her removal was halted following intervention by her lawyers. Her case is due to be heard in the court of appeal in July.
David Kato, a gay Ugandan activist, was murdered earlier this year. Homosexuality is illegal in Uganda. An anti-homosexuality bill calling for more punitive measures against gay people was due to be voted on by the Ugandan parliament last week but was not discussed. It could be brought before parliament again later in the year.
Emma Ginn, co-ordinator of Medical Justice, said: "Despite compelling medical evidence, the UK Border Agency disbelieves Ms Tibikawa's story. UKBA do not dispute that Ms Tibikawa has scars caused by a hot flat iron, but conclude that she did not suffer any ill-treatment in Uganda. We condemn the fact that they intend to deport Ms Tibakawa to a country where being gay is illegal and puts your life at risk."
Human Rights Watch spokeswoman Gauri van Gulik said: "Our research has shown that many cases of women like Betty are not taken seriously by the UK Border Agency. Unfortunately women who suffer this kind of violence have serious difficulty claiming asylum."
A UK Border Agency spokesperson said: "The government has made it clear that it is committed to stopping the removal of asylum seekers who have genuinely had to leave particular countries because of their sexual orientation or gender identification.
"However, when someone is found not to have a genuine claim we expect them to leave voluntarily."
A 34-year-old gay man from Uganda was due to be removed from the UK on 17 May. UKBA did not confirm whether or not the removal went ahead.

The Poster

Here it is. I'm so proud of this. Thank you so much to Colin for finding it, to Mustafa, the photographer, for allowing us to use the image and to Rachel for putting the final design together!

Three hundred and seventy-seven ways of being; Queep Perspectives on Law Workshop (S.O.A.S.)

Making theatre is about asking questions. In my mind to leave stories unresolved, moments unexplained and avoid overt directorial commentary on themes and issues, creates a richer more challenging experience for the audience. This production is about awareness raising on the one hand, but it also seeks to ask what do these lives and stories tell us about how globalisation and sexual politics play out within the individual. The academics task on the other hand is more concerned with answers; to describe, to map out, to catagorise. At this series of seminars all of the speakers were painfully aware of the problematic and self defeating effect of trying to do this. A description soon becomes a label that needs to be subverted, a map to solid and reductive, cast you categorisation too wide and the needs of minority groups are ignored, too narrow and they are excluded. After the first set of talks one academic stood and empathised with the speakers;

“Things solidify as soon as they come out of our mouths, but we need to unsolidfy them at the same time.”

The morning I attended was fascinating for many reasons, not least the information and development of my understanding, but also as insight into the strange world of the academia.

Queer Muslim Identity

The first talk was given by an earnest young man, with a love of complex academic language, and was delivered at speed in a thick slavic accent. I can't say I grasped much of it however his main point was this, and it was picked up again by a later speaker; that queer Muslims find themselves caught between the hetronormativity of their religious background, which has little room sexual otherness, and the homonormativity of the West, which has little understanding for Muslim identity. This idea was developed in a later talk on Dutch "homoemancipation" and how it marginalises queer Muslim groups. Dutch policy focuses funding on mainstream L.G.B.T., and whilst queer Muslim 'liberation' is one of their priorities, ultimately this presents Muslims with having to choose between their religious and cultural identity and their sexual identity, which is this construct is purely in the West/Dutch's possession. In contrast the U.K. government has given balanced funds to the gay Muslim groups (such as the Safra Project), encouraging the development of a distinct queer Muslim identity.

This second talk teetered on the edge of occidentalism. At one point it was asserted that Dutch homosexuals were nostalgic for a time when there were no Muslims in the Netherlands, which seemed like a huge generalisation at best and actually rather homophobic at worst. Quite rightly the speaker was challenged on this during the Q and A, and whilst she asserted that she only meant to criticise the Dutch government, it demonstrated that on a day devoted to demanding better understanding of non-western cultures our own culture was often presented in overly simplified terms.

Homophobia in Uganda

Of all the talks given during the course of the morning this was the most interesting, and delivered in a clear and conversational style (as a director I can never get away from critiquing presentation technique).

The current debate on homosexuality in Uganda is based on two paradoxical stand points. One that homosexuality is an Un-African Western import, and the other that it is homophobia that is the U.S. funded colonial import. These claims are not only moral arguments, but also nationalist. Of course homosexual behaviour and homophobia have always been in all cultures, and do not have specific geographical loci, but specific historical factors give emphasis to one or the other over time.  To say that US evangelicals are importing homophobia is empty conspiracy theory, on a par with saying Hollywood movies are importing homosexuality.

To give a historical example in Iran Persian culture and Sufi poetry is full of homoeroticism. Thriugh out the 1800's the modernising Iranian elite came into greater contact with the conservative attitudes of  Europe and sought to explain this as metaphorical rather than literal. Equally men displaying affection between each other on the street was explained as homosocial, rather than having any sexual overtones. So rather than homophobia being implanted by colonialism, it was actually developed by the Iranian intelligentsia in defense of the idea of Iran as a savage and uncultivated land (leading to exactly the opposite situation in the 21st century).

In Uganda a similar thing is occurring. Uganda has a long complex history with homosexuality,  of which attitudes toward the1880's king of Buganda, Mwanga II,  serve as a focus. Mwanga offered a powerful resistance to colonial forces, in particular christian missionaries, and was known to engage in sex acts with men. He is eulogised as a hero of Ugandan national interest, whilst at the same time the Ugandan martyrs, 45 page boys Mwanga had executed for refused to renounce their new found christian faith, are held up as Christian heroes. He therefore holds a very ambiguous place in Ugandan history, and is discussed in both positive and negative terms depending on whether it is from a nationalist or religious perspective. The U.S. evangelical right, in the search for a more 'authentic' construct of christian morality (the speaker pointed out this is one of the few area where a proportion of the US population see a non-western culture as superior and guiding), are certainly bolstering this view of him as an anathema of human desire against devine order with funding. But the formulation of U.S. christian right meets easily influenced Africans is reductive. The current Ugandan crisis evolved over a long period of time, with a basis in a complex and paradoxical history.

Summery of other discussions.

The other talks did not have quite the same relevance to the project, but offered some interesting points none the less. One speaker used the example of Berlin skinheads as a microcosm of sexual and political complexity, as he discovered during his time living there that the rightwing/leftwing skinhead binary did not translate obviously into a straight/gay binary. The talk was relaxed and enjoyable to listen to, but didn't seem that insightful. An enormously glamorous speaker who spoke with a gloriously thick Italian accent ('etro-sek-syoo-al-it-ay) attempted to make the point that gay marriage was not a new concept, and that marriage's history is full of "queer" versions. However her point was based largely on the fact she had discovered over 40 african tribal cultures that allow for marriage between women, which seemed a little thin and based on miscellany rather than any profound analysis. I did feel for her though, as she was the subject of a brutal academic take down by a pompous audience member, who was against the idea that the state should have any power to recognise or validate any relationship. This fell into that other academic trap of ideological purity over the practical reality, in that the vast majority of the population still want to have their relationship validated and recognized by the state.

I stared out of the window at a hot guy smoking a cigarette on the wall outside during a talk on Mexico City's abortion laws I'm afraid, but was back into it for a talk entitled "Three hundered and seventy-seven ways of being- sexualness and the Indian self." The speaker, rather wonderfully, referring to "him" self in "his" biography as s/he or herim. Essentially the talk was a reiteration of the familiar idea that binary gender and labels of sexuality are inadequate, but placed them in the context of Indian cultural history. The idea that sexuality is a fixed part of our identity is, after all, a relatively recent one but has become the dominate model of sexual being. Indian culture has always been more about the flow of desire, and in light of this has recently scrapped colonial anti-sodomy laws and now officially recognises "other" as a third gender. This is about the right to express and enjoy sexualness rather than choose a sexuality in the western sense.

I hung around for the afternoon talks, but their focus looked to be increasingly on law rather than culture, so slip away into the life of central London's streets with much to think about. I found an internet cafe in Holborn and began writing up what I had heard. In the seedy gloom at the back of the shop two dark skinned men in filthy clothes slept contorted over blank computer screens. The owner eventually barreled down to eject them, and with their poor English they could offer little protest. Who they were, I can't make assumptions, but they were obviously destitute and in a strange land. The fine ideas expressed by the well dressed theoreticians in that sunny S.O.A.S. room were not just so much academic waffle, but arguments determined to further a more humanitarian understanding of ourselves, and not as remote from the scene in the internet shop as it might at first seem.

Please take notice!

I hope for the sake of everyone in Uganda, not just gays and Lesbians, this bill is stopped. There is 48 hours to sign this petition. 1,000,000 signatures is the desired amount and it's just over half way. The international community must show that oppression and death must never over rule love and freedom of expression.

http://www.avaaz.org/en/uganda_stop_homophobia_petition/?cl=1055976789&v=9043

The House of Rainbow.

The evening is warm and sunlit as I walk down a quiet suburban street in outer London. Houses foster little glass keeps over their front doors, filled with school shoes and dog leads, and the sounds of family life echo from somewhere distant. At the far end a battered, red-brick community hall that could be in a village in on Lewis rather than a pulsing metropolis plays host to the mysterious sounding "House of Rainbow Fellowship," an inclusive prayer group for gay, lesbian and straight people run by Nigerian Jide MacAulay.

I am the third to arrive. Jide is putting up laminated posters; "God Accepts You" "God Adores You." Instantly his warmth and humour feel welcoming. "You are early." He chuckles. I look at the clock and it is only a few minutes till half six, the appointed time. We chat in the summery coolness of the hall, his calm manner is pepper with burst of camp flamboyance. The fellowship began in 2006 in Lagos, at first very openly, before going underground and eventually leading to Jide needing to flee the country in self imposed exile. He has building up the group in London for over a year, and now has a group in Manchester too, though the fellowship is represent in a number of African countries too.

He goes to greet some arriving congregation and I take a seat (or a pew I suppose) towards the back of the rectangle of chairs he has laid out. More people are arriving, as a researcher I feel I should be jumping up and finding out all about them but my natural shyness prevents me. I am relieved when a Alice, a self assured lady from the west indies sits next to me and introduces herself. She greats the news of my project warmly and happily tells me of her own experience gaining status in the U.K.. I now feel bad that I am focusing purely on men for this project, as she seems so eager to share.

Jide takes her to one side to give her some duties for the service, and Robert, a quietly spoken American takes her place. I ask if "This is his first time?" Not quite sure how to present the fact that I am here to research rather than praise. He says yes, but probably his last. It transpires Robert is also an artist working on insectionality between immigration and sexuality. It seems Jide is the man to go to.

The service starts with Alice leading a prayer. She asks us to stand, and lets us know that when she feels the spirit she has to move around. I think of Philip Larkin in his poem "Church Going";

"Hatless, I take off/ My cycle clips in awkward reverence."

I feel I should join in, do something, though I hold no kind of faith at all. I stand but find I needn't worry. As I listened to Alice's words and the low hum of people (there must be about 15 in all, about half are white British) adding their own bursts of amens and Hallelujahs, I quickly feel deeply moved. "Bless the asylum seekers," she is saying, "And those who fear to be themselves." I cannot help but mumble "Amen" in agreement.

A  young man stands at the front and leads a series of chants, clapping his hands and stamping his feet. For a fleeting moment I see a group of bearded devout looking Muslim men walk past. So often the images of religion instill a kind of fear in me, but here this was different.

Jide leads his sermon. There is something so beautiful about it. Here in this quite hall, now around 20 people sit, felling free in a generous and pragmatic religious space. In front of me a beautiful lesbian couple sit, hand in hand, listening to his every word. Whilst I have no faith, his reiteration of the idea that we are all loved by god regardless to this small group of people, many of whom had overcome such suffering and who were such outsiders in relation to their nation of birth and faith, was profoundly moving.

A woman in a wheelchair reads the notices with a deft comic touch, and a collection is taken. I have been so anti-religion through out my life, but the help and guidance the House of Rainbow gives to people who do have faith in Lagos and Ghana and Lesotho, as well as London and Manchester, must be of such astonishing value to them, I emptied my pocket of all the pound coins I had (sadly only about a fiver).

We all held hands for a final prayer. The three other men I held hands with swayed and mumbled, and I felt a little fraudulent again. I gave in. Just in my head I said, with a wary tone, "Well God, if you are there, I think these people are doing something incredible so please protect and help them." I think it is the only time I have ever truely prayed and the only time I have meant what I asked for. We said the Lords Prayer together, and I actually rather enjoyed the familiar and poetic words coming from my lips, unsaid for many years.

Jide's blog; http://revrowlandjidemacaulay.blogspot.com/

A Pleasent Land? Reflections on the Royal Wedding and British Identity

In a slight departure from my previous posts, I want to use this blog to indulge in my obsessive fascination with the Royal Wedding and how it brought the national identity of the modern British sharply into focus.

Here I am at work, surrounded by bunting when I was unexpectedly vox popped by a french news website a few days before...

Sam Rowe, who works in a flag-and-bunting-draped pub in the heart of London's Soho on Wardour Street, admitted that he was “secretly really enjoying it”. Sam went on to say that he liked “the sense of continuity and history” that the royal family provides, but as a left-winger admits to this only reluctantly.

On the day my secrecy slip away. As I walked down Old Compton Street, which was packed out with burly men and tourists waving flags and wearing Kate and Wills masks, I suddenly felt a joy in being British. The television had shown any number of eccentrics, with wonky teeth and multitudinous regional accents, in home-made Union Jack outfits sigh it had been the greatest day of their lives. The Royals had been stiff and distant, and largely unwilling to bow to the pressure for grand theatre the crowd were baying for. The balcony appearance more reminiscent of the bus scene at the end of The Graduate, than the feet-sweeping romance of An Officer and Gentleman. Even the British left hurumphing about the whole thing was fondly familiar side show to the main event. I felt cosy in the warmth of the whole day.

British identity, it seems, is utterly encapsulated by the monarchy. I say monarchy, because the poor individuals of the House of Windsor who happen to hold the post are ultimately less important than the institution (Was Kate, in her virginal white, really getting married or a being ordained as human sacrifice to the idea of Britain and it's history?). I realised that even British republicanism isn't really a serious in it's intentions; it amounts to not watching the television or tutting over the news stand rather than storming the palace. And what would replace it?

The leftist supporters of the position probably imagine some urbane, eurocratic president with guilt rimmed glasses and a sharp suit guiding us to the cultivated heart of Europe. But unfortunately such a figure does not exist as this is Britain we are talking about, and the post would only attract the worst kind of celeb politico in the vein of Lembit Opik or Boris Johnson. Could the post have any power, could it act a figure head? What would be the point in it? But perhaps most importantly where would this leave British identity?

Speaking to a contact in London recently, he said for all the UK boarder agencies viciousness the British are seen by asylum seekers as a kinder nation than our neighbours in Europe. We are of course far from perfect, but the fact is the race and ethnicity of the white British is not seen as central to our identity as much as in a republic. Nick Griffen remains far outside the political mainstream in comparison the the Le Pens or Joerg Haider in France and Austria? Would 68% of the British want to expel any major ethnic group as 68% Italians have been reported as wanting to do the Roma? Why does the idea of Englishness, which is a race, still create a sense of discomfort for many in comparison to the collective notion of Britishness?

I would argue it is because of the strength of our historic national institutions. They remain the same, whilst society fluctuates and adapts around them. The Britain is a very different place now as to what it was when the Duke of York married the future Queen mother in 1923;

But the guards riding out of Buckingham Palace, the lifting of the train into the carriage and the appearance on the balcony are all exactly the same as they were two weeks ago. They allow us to have confidence that our history and culture will draw us together every so often for the occasional wedding or coronation, and anyone one is welcome to gather round and enjoy it in a way in which the celebration of pure nationalism remains exclusive.

Another interesting feature of the day was the wedding was so shunned north of boarder. A Scottish friend visiting me in London last week mentioned how shocked he was to hear people talk about the royal wedding positively. Britishness and Scotishness have a very different relationship to Britishness and Englishness. Britishness is very much an English creation, and the English happily subjugate their own identity for it. Where as Scottish identity is by it's very nature subversive of the British ideal. However if Scotland ever do leave the union where will this leave us? Could Britain survive, or even be called Britain if a third of the island of Britain was a separate, sovereign entity?

All this make me sound very conservative. But the royal wedding made me realise that the monarchy and Britishness are good for the left. They protect us from the worst of the right wing. People need nations, and need to feel they belong. Dismantling these institutions would leave us a bland internationalist no mans land, where the right would pray on diminishing confidence that we know who we are.