Here's what we know about Julian Assange: he founded WikiLeaks, he has been arrested and charged with sexual offenses, he denies the allegations, he has been denied bail, and his work has generated extensive controversy and animosity among politicians.
Here's what I know about rape allegations: the mass media is particularly shit at impartial journalism when it's about a rape allegation, and we, the general public are also particularly shit at being impartial.
I think what WikiLeaks does is important. I think transparency in governing is important. I think protections for whistleblowers are important.
I also think that nobody is all good or all bad, and that the fact that you do good and important work does not necessarily mean that you're not a bastard. Whether Julian Assange belongs in this category I do not know, and I do not care to speculate. I refer you to the above list of things I do know about him. I note the point here because it's something that people often overlook but I thin it may be part of what is motivating the popular support of Assange against the allegations. That is, I think many people assume that if someone is nice to fluffy kittens then they must automatically be A Good Person who can do no harm. Maybe Assange is the sweetest person you could ever hope to meet, and is particularly sweet to fluffy kittens. Maybe he's a total wanker. I don't know, and what's more, I don't particularly care. What I do know and care about is that supporting transparency and whistleblowing does not require me to excuse or ignore serious allegations.
But I'm saddened to see a number of liberal and even feminist friends talking and writing about Assange and the allegations as if the allegations are obviously trumped-up, or simply unimportant, or who write about supporting WikiLeaks more vociferously and frequently when the media is full of stories about these allegations than at any other times. The people who know what really happened are Assange and the two complainants. The rest of us? We have to stick with the lists at the start of this post.
If you really care about transparency, and you really think whistleblowing is important (and I assume that you do think these things if you support WikiLeaks), your concern should be for the truth. And as you know, if you have been following WikiLeaks, the truth isn't always convenient or simple. So if you're really committed to finding out the truth, your concern should be not to shut down allegations or dismiss them, but to insist on a fair trial.
--IP
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Tuesday, 7 December 2010
Wednesday, 2 June 2010
Foreign aid and human rights
I guess by now you've heard about Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga, who were convicted to 14 years of hard labour in Malawi for celebrating their engagement. Following international outcry, they were pardoned.
What struck me was the terms in which the outcry was phrased. In the UK, much of the outcry seemed to be associated with the fact that Malawi relies on foreign aid, much of it from the UK: that is, the UK sends foreign aid to a state that oppresses queer people.
What was done to Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga was appalling and inexcusable. The oppression of queer people, of any people, is always inexcusable. This post does not advocate non-intervention, nor do I propose to explore the ins and outs of intervention and circumstances in which it is/is not justified in this post.
Among those commenting on Malawi's status as a receiver of foreign aid, and suggesting or advocating that it could or should be withdrawn: nearly all the news coverage including the Guardian article linked above, The F-Word, the Huffington Post, and the columnist Dan Savage. UK-based gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell is also on the record as saying that the US should withdraw foreign aid from countries that oppress LGBT people, and he has been actively involved in campaigning on this case.
Here's my worry: foreign aid goes to pay for particular services like HIV/AIDS treatment and education, and other medical care. It goes to pay for sustainable development. And when I read Peter Tatchell saying this:
I wonder what he means by "human rights". Undoubtedly the human rights of Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga were violated. Undoubtedly, it is a human right not to be a prisoner of conscience.
Is it not also a human right to have, among other things, enough food to eat, drinking water, access to adequate healthcare, and education? If we remove foreign aid from countries who need them, are we making a bad situation any better? The persecution of queer people undoubtedly makes it harder to deliver HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention services. But so does not having money with which to do so.
Call me naive. Tell me there's no other way to persuade a government not to practice cruel punishments on people who are queer than to threaten the withdrawal of foreign aid. Because if there is, and we're jumping straight to "we'll take away the money that allows the purchase of life-saving medication and sandwiches", well, that's imperialist and it's racist. And if there isn't...well, that's still imperialist. It's not like we get to abdicate responsibility for a history of colonialism and economic exploitation.
And as Renee Martin of Womanist Musings points out, why aren't we asking queer rights advocates in Malawi what sort of international solidarity would be helpful? Why do high-profile (and for the most part, socially privileged) Westerners think they can decide what would be most helpful in a situation they have no experience of?
(NB, some blogs are reporting that Tiwonge Chimbalanga is trans, and the couple is correctly described as a straight couple. I have been unable to find any mention of this in the mainstream news, and I am reluctant to use Western gender or orientation frameworks like "gay" or "trans" or "LGBT" in any case. For that reason, I have not labeled the couple's orientation or gender, and used the term "queer", except where I am quoting other people. If you hear more on this point, please shout in the comments or by email, and I will happily correct my post. I certainly don't want to erase people's self-descriptions.)
--IP
[Crossposted at Modus Dopens]
What struck me was the terms in which the outcry was phrased. In the UK, much of the outcry seemed to be associated with the fact that Malawi relies on foreign aid, much of it from the UK: that is, the UK sends foreign aid to a state that oppresses queer people.
What was done to Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga was appalling and inexcusable. The oppression of queer people, of any people, is always inexcusable. This post does not advocate non-intervention, nor do I propose to explore the ins and outs of intervention and circumstances in which it is/is not justified in this post.
Among those commenting on Malawi's status as a receiver of foreign aid, and suggesting or advocating that it could or should be withdrawn: nearly all the news coverage including the Guardian article linked above, The F-Word, the Huffington Post, and the columnist Dan Savage. UK-based gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell is also on the record as saying that the US should withdraw foreign aid from countries that oppress LGBT people, and he has been actively involved in campaigning on this case.
Here's my worry: foreign aid goes to pay for particular services like HIV/AIDS treatment and education, and other medical care. It goes to pay for sustainable development. And when I read Peter Tatchell saying this:
We must urge the US State Department to make foreign aid and trade conditional on the recipient countries agreeing to respect human rights, including the human rights of LGBT people. Tyrannies should not be rewarded: No US aid for anti-gay regimes
I wonder what he means by "human rights". Undoubtedly the human rights of Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga were violated. Undoubtedly, it is a human right not to be a prisoner of conscience.
Is it not also a human right to have, among other things, enough food to eat, drinking water, access to adequate healthcare, and education? If we remove foreign aid from countries who need them, are we making a bad situation any better? The persecution of queer people undoubtedly makes it harder to deliver HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention services. But so does not having money with which to do so.
Call me naive. Tell me there's no other way to persuade a government not to practice cruel punishments on people who are queer than to threaten the withdrawal of foreign aid. Because if there is, and we're jumping straight to "we'll take away the money that allows the purchase of life-saving medication and sandwiches", well, that's imperialist and it's racist. And if there isn't...well, that's still imperialist. It's not like we get to abdicate responsibility for a history of colonialism and economic exploitation.
And as Renee Martin of Womanist Musings points out, why aren't we asking queer rights advocates in Malawi what sort of international solidarity would be helpful? Why do high-profile (and for the most part, socially privileged) Westerners think they can decide what would be most helpful in a situation they have no experience of?
I know it seems like a novel idea, but how about asking the TLBG community in Malawi what form of support they would like? I am most certain that they would not support an action that would lead to further impoverishment and death. It is not the government of Malawi that will suffer, it is the people.
(NB, some blogs are reporting that Tiwonge Chimbalanga is trans, and the couple is correctly described as a straight couple. I have been unable to find any mention of this in the mainstream news, and I am reluctant to use Western gender or orientation frameworks like "gay" or "trans" or "LGBT" in any case. For that reason, I have not labeled the couple's orientation or gender, and used the term "queer", except where I am quoting other people. If you hear more on this point, please shout in the comments or by email, and I will happily correct my post. I certainly don't want to erase people's self-descriptions.)
--IP
[Crossposted at Modus Dopens]
Sunday, 16 May 2010
Bechdel testing and intersectionality
The Bechdel Test (or more accurately, the Bechdel-Wallace Test, but it's sometimes also called the Mo Movie Measure) is usually said to trace its popularity back to the comic strip Dykes To Watch Out For, by Alison Bechdel, who credits Liz Wallace for the rule itself. The original strip can be found at Alison Bechdel's blog, and I'm not sure of the copyright issues, so alas I cannot reprint it here. But you should definitely take a peak at the strip in question.
The Bechdel Test in its original comic strip form is:
There can be strengthened versions of the Bechdel Test too , so one can ammend (1) to require two women protagonists, and amend (3) to include a provision that the women must talk to each other about something other than a man or normatively feminine activities (eg housekeeping, childcare, etc). For example Juno passes the unstrengthened Test, but not a strengthened Test, because all the women in the film apart from Juno herself talk about babies, babycare, and motherhood when they are not talking about men.
The Test does not infallibly demarcate the sexist films from the non-sexist ones, but it is a useful tool to highlight the invisibility of women as protagonists who are not appendages to men, and trigger discussion of the roles women have in the general media, and within particular storylines. It's worth noting that only a tiny minority of mainstream films and TV programs pass the Test or strengthened versions of the Test, and children's films are known to fare particularly badly. Books tend to do rather better, but still not nearly as well as we might hope.
One might also want to have a Bechdel Test for demographic groups other than those that are gender-marked: one could have a Bechdel Test for race, queerness, disability, age, fatness, class, etc. It has been much remarked on in social justice circles that portrayals of members of these demographic groups tend to follow the same tired old tropes, many of which are downright harmful.
For example, a few weeks ago, I blogged over at my place about the problematic discourses of queerness that are presented in film and fiction books. In mainstream narratives, the death and hopelessness of queer people is still part of mainstream discourses about queerness, as is extreme gender dichotomisation. In mainstream novels and films about queer people, how many of them do not involve the death, often brutal, of a queer person, attributed to queerness itself? Consider Brokeback Mountain, Boys Don’t Cry, and even Queer As Folk (UK version). Angels in America is a rare exception: the death of queer characters is caused by silence and closetedness, not by queerness; and the ending is...more life.
There are similarly problematic narratives about disability, something that the team at FWD/Forward have been doing a stellar job of blogging. Disabled people in films are almost invariably presented as bitter and manipulative (House, Patty in the most recent series of Shameless), downright evil (Doctor Who's Davros), or just people whose lives are not worthwhile, as in the Grey's Anatomy case that is discussed at FWD/Forward, which involves narratives about both disability and size.
Racialicious and The Angry Black Woman have also discussed the difficulties of formulating a Bechdel Test for race. In much mainstream film/fiction, non-White people are either the Bad Guys, or their roles are restricted to stereotyped roles, or they are simply not present at all.
As feminists with a vested interest in addressing intersectionality, where does that leave us? I think the discussions that emerge from attempts to formulate Bechdel Tests for gender, race, disability, etc are useful discussions to have, because they highlight the problems with the roles that are currently allocated to people in those groups, and what less oppressive portrayals would look like.
But I wonder if part of the problem isn't that fact that we're trying to formulate these Test versions independently. That isn't a criticism of the Test, or of any of its versions. Nor is it a criticism of films/books that pass the Test(s). But few films/books pass more than one kind of Test, and if they do, it's certainly rare for them to pass more than two (The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency and Grey's Anatomy, for example, both pass a gender and race version, but no more). This means that no mainstream film or book I can think of is genuinely representative of human diversity, and I'm particularly hard pressed to think good portrayals of people who experience multiple kinds of oppression.
Thoughts?
--IP
The Bechdel Test in its original comic strip form is:
The film must have:
- At least two women in it,
- who talk to each other,
- about something other than a man.
There can be strengthened versions of the Bechdel Test too , so one can ammend (1) to require two women protagonists, and amend (3) to include a provision that the women must talk to each other about something other than a man or normatively feminine activities (eg housekeeping, childcare, etc). For example Juno passes the unstrengthened Test, but not a strengthened Test, because all the women in the film apart from Juno herself talk about babies, babycare, and motherhood when they are not talking about men.
The Test does not infallibly demarcate the sexist films from the non-sexist ones, but it is a useful tool to highlight the invisibility of women as protagonists who are not appendages to men, and trigger discussion of the roles women have in the general media, and within particular storylines. It's worth noting that only a tiny minority of mainstream films and TV programs pass the Test or strengthened versions of the Test, and children's films are known to fare particularly badly. Books tend to do rather better, but still not nearly as well as we might hope.
One might also want to have a Bechdel Test for demographic groups other than those that are gender-marked: one could have a Bechdel Test for race, queerness, disability, age, fatness, class, etc. It has been much remarked on in social justice circles that portrayals of members of these demographic groups tend to follow the same tired old tropes, many of which are downright harmful.
For example, a few weeks ago, I blogged over at my place about the problematic discourses of queerness that are presented in film and fiction books. In mainstream narratives, the death and hopelessness of queer people is still part of mainstream discourses about queerness, as is extreme gender dichotomisation. In mainstream novels and films about queer people, how many of them do not involve the death, often brutal, of a queer person, attributed to queerness itself? Consider Brokeback Mountain, Boys Don’t Cry, and even Queer As Folk (UK version). Angels in America is a rare exception: the death of queer characters is caused by silence and closetedness, not by queerness; and the ending is...more life.
There are similarly problematic narratives about disability, something that the team at FWD/Forward have been doing a stellar job of blogging. Disabled people in films are almost invariably presented as bitter and manipulative (House, Patty in the most recent series of Shameless), downright evil (Doctor Who's Davros), or just people whose lives are not worthwhile, as in the Grey's Anatomy case that is discussed at FWD/Forward, which involves narratives about both disability and size.
Racialicious and The Angry Black Woman have also discussed the difficulties of formulating a Bechdel Test for race. In much mainstream film/fiction, non-White people are either the Bad Guys, or their roles are restricted to stereotyped roles, or they are simply not present at all.
As feminists with a vested interest in addressing intersectionality, where does that leave us? I think the discussions that emerge from attempts to formulate Bechdel Tests for gender, race, disability, etc are useful discussions to have, because they highlight the problems with the roles that are currently allocated to people in those groups, and what less oppressive portrayals would look like.
But I wonder if part of the problem isn't that fact that we're trying to formulate these Test versions independently. That isn't a criticism of the Test, or of any of its versions. Nor is it a criticism of films/books that pass the Test(s). But few films/books pass more than one kind of Test, and if they do, it's certainly rare for them to pass more than two (The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency and Grey's Anatomy, for example, both pass a gender and race version, but no more). This means that no mainstream film or book I can think of is genuinely representative of human diversity, and I'm particularly hard pressed to think good portrayals of people who experience multiple kinds of oppression.
Thoughts?
--IP
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