Numero Monografico 25 – luglio 2014
Monographic Issue 25 – July 2014
Queerness in the Middle East and South Asia
Guest Editor:!Jolanda Guardi
Dep n. 25
Luglio 2014
Jolanda Guardi, Introduzione
pp. I-V
Ricerche
Alessandra Consolaro, Respectably queer? Queer visibility and homophobia in
Hindi literature
p. 1
Jolanda Guardi, Female Homosexuality in Contemporary Arabic Novel
p. 17
Joseph Valle, Dangerous Liasons: The Exceptional Gay Palestinian in Human
Rights Documentaries
p. 32
Anna Vanzan, The LGTB Question in Iranian Cinema: a proxy Discourse?
p. 45
Margaret Redlich, Something is happening: Queerness in the Films of Karan Joha
p. 56
Serena Tolino, Homosexuality in the Middle East: an analysis of dominant and
competitive discourses
p. 72
Documenti
Sara Rai, Sull’orlo
p. 92
Strumenti di Ricerca
Queerness in the Middle East and South Asia. Bibliografia orientativa e strumenti
di ricerca nel web (a cura di Jolanda Guardi)
p. 106
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Indice
DEP n.25/2014
Recensioni
Janet Afary - Kevin B. Anderson, Foucault and the Iranian Revolution. Gender
and the Seduction of Islamism (Anna Vanzan)
p.118
Ruth Vanita-Saleem Kidwai, Same-Sex Love in India. Readings from Literature
and History (Alessandra Consolaro)
p. 123
Khaled ar-Rouayheb, Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800
(Estella Carpi)
p. 127
Ecos de la visita de Silvia Federici a México en el otoño de 2013 (a cura di Raquel
Gutiérrez Aguilar)
p. 130
11 luglio 2013 a Srebrenica. Resoconto di Maria Vittoria Adami
p. 160
Immagini
Immagini di Srebrenica
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Introduzione
di
Jolanda Guardi
The girl was getting used to queer adventures,
which interested her very much
(L. Frank Baum, The Road to Oz)
Routledge, noto editore nel campo accademico, ha lanciato nel 2014 una nuova
rivista, Porn Studies. Nell’introdurre questo nuovo titolo, le editor, Feona Attwood
and Clarissa Smith (2014) sottolineano come l’annuncio della nuova pubblicazione
sia stato accolto in generale positivamente, anche se non sono mancati commenti
ironici e le “perenni accuse di superficialità” (2014, 1) rivolte ai media studies,
campo in cui si colloca il loro lavoro. Quest’accusa di superficialità è quella cui
anche chi si occupa di studi di genere e queer studies in ambiti quali quelli presentati nel presente numero deve sempre esplicitamente o implicitamente rispondere.
Sebbene le due espressioni siano ormai correnti in ambito internazionale anche
nell’ambito degli studi sul cosiddetto ‘Oriente’, è innegabile che in Italia chi se ne
occupa fatica a veder riconosciuto il proprio lavoro in ambiti nei quali, per tradizione, l’approccio considerato scientifico è limitato a quello filologico, storico o
legato agli studi religiosi e gli approcci di carattere interdisciplinare e tanto più
quelli che usano il genere come categoria di analisi (Joan Scott 1986) vengono appunto classificati come superficiali.
È evidente che l’ingresso dei queer studies in queste tradizioni di studio ha messo in discussione non solamente le discipline e il concetto stesso di disciplina, ma
anche la relazione tra la ricercatrice e il ricercatore e l’oggetto della ricerca. I queer
studies, infatti, hanno consentito la definizione di mappe concettuali e modelli
transdisciplinari che hanno permesso l’emergere di nuove identità politiche che
contribuiscono ad alterare il canone “malestream” (Katie King 1994, 91). Quando
autrici e autori o registe e registi includono nei loro romanzi e nei loro film elementi legati ad un orientamento sessuale considerato generalmente tabù, quando una o
un credente pone domande relative all’omosessualità a un consulente religioso o
quando in testa alle hit parade si trova una performer transessuale, l’immagine del
discorso ufficiale sull’identità – che esso considera portatrice di valori ben definiti
– vacilla e in alcuni casi viene distrutta, contemporaneamente mettendo in crisi coloro che di questa identità si occupano per motivi di studio e costringendo a rinego© DEP
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Jolanda Guardi
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ziare costantemente significati dati per scontati. In questo modo l’identità proposta
da stati che si vogliono patriarcali ed eterosessuali e che sono costruiti secondo il
binarismo analizzato da Sedgwick (Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick 1990) viene inesorabilmente sgretolata come la lettrice e il lettore avranno chiaro dalla lettura dei saggi
proposti, ma lo è anche la costruzione binaria di un altro essenzialmente immaginato. Il processo è ovviamente nei due sensi: così come l’identità del singolo stato si
sgretola diventando queer (Jarrod Hays 2000), nel senso originale del termine di
qualcosa fuori dall’ordinario e nel senso recente legato alla sessualità, così anche la
ricerca su queste regioni diventa queer e queer diventano coloro che se ne occupano secondo questa prospettiva.
L’idea di un numero che si occupasse di questi temi nasce nel 2012, quando, in
collaborazione con Anna Vanzan, pubblicavo il volume Che genere di Islam
(2012). L’ampio successo del volume, le richieste di approfondimento e il dibattito
suscitato, ci convinsero a proseguire le nostre ricerche, che ebbero un primo risultato in un panel presentato al Congresso della Società delle Storiche nel 20131. In tale occasione, il discorso relativo al Medio Oriente si è ampliato sino a includere
anche il subcontinente indiano, nella convinzione che l’intersezionalità di approcci
diversi possa essere solo arricchente e che una produzione collettiva della conoscenza sia sempre da preferire a una concezione individuale che vede la ricercatrice
o il ricercatore autocentrati e stretti in un pensiero dicotomico che inevitabilmente
privilegia il lato predominante. Il piccolo gruppo di lavoro così formatosi – pur
mantenendo ciascuna delle componenti il proprio specifico filone di ricerca2 – ha
proseguito con un passo successivo, presentando il proprio lavoro alle Deutsche
Orientalistentage di Münster sempre nel 20133.
Al termine di due anni di lavoro, quindi, ho sentito la necessità di dare visibilità
a questo progetto e da qui l’idea di proporre a DEP la sua realizzazione. La lettrice
e il lettore troveranno in questo numero i contributi del gruppo di lavoro originario
e quelli di colleghe e colleghi che hanno aderito al call for papers, nella convinzione che la varietà di approcci e di formazione sia oggi quanto mai necessaria per rispondere alla tecnicizzazione del sapere.
Uno dei settori in cui l’approccio queer fatica maggiormente a essere considerato è certamente l’ambito degli studi letterari. Nello studio delle cosiddette letterature “orientali” solo recentemente sono stati pubblicati studi che coniugano gli strumenti dell’analisi letteraria con quella storica, sdoganando in tal modo lo studio
delle letterature nazionali dall’ambito dell’approccio orientalista. I contributi di
Consolaro e Guardi procedono in questa direzione. In Respectably queer? Queer
visibility and homophobia in Hindi literature Consolaro, attraverso l’analisi di due
brani letterari, sottolinea come l’essere queer sia necessario per smantellare
1
Il congresso SIS 2013 si è svolto dal 14 al 16 febbraio 2013 tra Padova e Venezia. All’interno del
congresso ho proposto e coordinato un panel dal titolo “Altri generi”.
2
Personalmente la ricerca prosegue all’interno del network di ricerca ReNGOO, Gender in Antisemitism, Orientalism and Occidentalism, e gli ultimi risultati verranno presentati dal 18 al 21 giugno
2014 in un workshop che si terrà alla Humboldt Universität di Berlino.
3
I Deutsche Orientalistische Tage si sono svolti a Münster dal 23 al 27 settembre 2013. Il panel, organizzato da Alessandra Consolaro, aveva per titolo “Other” genders: LGTB Issues in Arabic, Hindi,
and Iranian Literature and Film.
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Jolanda Guardi
DEP n. 25 / 2014
un’impostazione binaria della sessualità, poiché in questo modo è possibile
l’esistenza di un movimento di liberazione gay. Ciò può avvenire solamente mettendo in discussione la naturalità della relazione dicotomica maschio-femmina e
utilizzando un discorso che fa della chiarezza il suo asse portante, quella chiarezza
che mette in “imbarazzo” il paradigma vitruviano (Rosi Braidotti 2013) e consente
di andare oltre la mediocrità incoraggiata dalla nostra società (Audre Lorde 1984,
54)4. In tal senso le contronarrazioni vengono esplorate anche nel contributo di
Guardi, Female Homosexuality in Contemporary Arabic Novel nel quale viene
messa in discussione la retorica della normalità femminile attraverso l’analisi di alcuni recenti romanzi in lingua araba. In questo contributo il legame sottile tra genere, sessualità e potere viene analizzato a partire dalle contraddizioni presenti nei testi che, da un lato, sembrano essere performativi (Judith Butler 2010), dall’altro riconducono il discorso sull’omosessualità all’interno di una cornice eteronormativa
continuamente oscillando tra il desiderio di decostruire il discorso dominante e la
difficoltà di superarne la cristallizzazione. Il percorso di formazione di un nuovo
genere letterario, come evidenziato in entrambi gli articoli, conduce a istituire una
relazione tra repressione sessuale e oppressione politica. Questo percorso, che va
dal margine al centro, porta a rendere queer lo stato. Come ha affermato Lisa Duggan: The time has come to queer the state (Duggan 1994, 1) e, aggiungerei, to
queer the Academy.
Se la diffusione e l’analisi delle produzioni letterarie nazionali faticano a emergere, maggior facilità e consenso è riservato alla produzione cinematografica, come
ben evidenziato nei contributi di Valle, Vanzan e Redlich. In società dove parlare
esplicitamente di omosessualità è difficoltoso o nelle quali addirittura l’esistenza
degli omosessuali viene negata (Joseph A. Boone 2010), la fiction e il documentario permettono di portare sullo schermo situazioni e problematiche scottanti raggiungendo al contempo un vasto pubblico sia nei paesi d’origine che altrove. Joseph Valle in Dangerous Liasons: The Exceptional Gay Palestinian in Human
Rights Documentaries sottolinea, attraverso l’analisi puntuale di City of Borders,
come l’omosessuale palestinese narri se stesso e venga narrato e in che modo subisca una doppia discriminazione: interna, per il suo orientamento sessuale ed esterna, in quanto palestinese. Anche la possibilità di annullare le differenze offerta dal
luogo di ritrovo che raccoglie “dannati della terra” di ogni provenienza, risulta essere un’illusione, poiché per accedervi si rischia la prigione e, soprattutto, perché
ghettizza. Le contraddizioni in questo senso vengono messe in evidenza anche
nell’articolo di Anna Vanzan, The LGTB Question in Iranian Cinema: a proxy Discourse?, nel quale forse ancor più stridente è il contrasto tra un discorso ufficiale
che, da un lato, nega l’esistenza dell’omosessualità e per questo cerca di normare
qualunque anche minima “devianza” dalla norma e, dall’altro, il proliferare di produzioni che criticano più o meno velatamente il governo anche attraverso il genere.
In tal modo, le registe e i registi iraniane/i mostrano come sia possibile in ogni caso, pur tra mille difficoltà, ritagliare all’interno della propria produzione uno spazio
per la critica. Questo aspetto è di non secondaria importanza, come sottolinea anche Margaret Redlich ne Something is happening: “Queerness in the Films of Ka4
To encourage excellence is to go beyond the encouraged mediocrity of our society.
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Jolanda Guardi
DEP n. 25 / 2014
ran Johar. In questo articolo, seguendo un approccio analitico, Redlich dimostra
come Karan Johar, noto regista indiano, utilizzi abilmente un linguaggio filmico
che è al contempo comico e attento alla tradizione, collocando così la coppia gay
sulla soglia e lasciando la spettatrice e lo spettatore nell’impossibilità di creare
l’opposizione binaria, in tal modo offrendo una vera e propria lettura queer della
società indiana, tradizionalmente restia ad accettare deroghe dalla norma.
A chiudere, il contributo di Serena Tolino, Homosexuality in the Middle East:
an analysis of dominant and competitive discourses, analizza in che modo due discorsi paralleli, quello religioso e quello della globalizzazione, si intersecano e si
influenzano a vicenda nel mondo musulmano. Tra le conseguenze della globalizzazione vi è stato senz’altro una mediatizzazione delle esperienze religiose e dei discorsi a esse legate. Un fenomeno che si è diffuso nei paesi musulmani in tal senso
è quello della presenza di esperti religiosi che tramite programmi o siti dedicati rispondono alle domande delle credenti e dei credenti, pronunciando fatwà, pareri
non vincolanti in materia. L’apertura della rete permette in tal modo a chiunque di
porre ogni genere di questione e i muft! sono così costretti a rispondere, prendendo
posizione anche su temi come quello dell’omosessualità, a lungo ignorati. Certamente si tratta di un fenomeno in pieno svolgimento e i cui risultati nel definire le
società musulmane contemporanee saranno visibili a lungo termine, tuttavia è importante, come sottolineato nel contributo, delineare il legame tra questi fenomeni e
il percorso che ha portato nel passato a una certa definizione di omosessualità.
Tutti i contributi presentati sono ricerche originali che stimolano la riflessione e
aprono nuove strade al dibattito e all’approfondimento che mi auguro possa essere
fruttuoso.
Riferimenti bibliografici
Attwood, Feona and Smith, Clarissa. 2014. “Porn Studies: An Introduction”.
Porn Studies, 1:1-2: 1-6.
Boone, Joseph A. 2010. “Modernist Re-orientation: Imagining Homoerotic desire in the “Nearly” Middle East”. Modernism/Modernity, Volume 17, Number 3,
Semptember: 561-605.
Braidotti, Rosi. 2013. The Posthuman. Cambridge: Polity.
Butler, Judith. 2010. Parole che provocano. Per una politica del performativo.
Milano: Raffaello Cortina Editore.
Guardi, Jolanda & Vanzan, Anna. 2012. Che genere di islam. Roma: Ediesse.
Duggan, Lisa. 1994. “Queering the State”. Social Text, 39: 1-14.
Hayes, Jarrod. 2000. Queer Nations. Marginal Sexualities in the Maghreb. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press.
King, Katie. 1994. “Feminism and Writing Technologies: Teaching Queerish
through Maps, territories, and Pattern”. Configurations, 2.1: 89-106.
IV
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DEP n. 25 / 2014
Lorde, Audre. 1984. Sister Outsider: essay and Speeches. Berkeley: Crossing
Press.
Scott, Joan. 1986. “Gender as a Useful Category of historical Analysis”. The
American Historical Review, Vol. 19, N. 5, Dec., 1053-1075.
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. 1990. Epistemology of the closet. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
V
Respectably queer? Queer visibility
and homophobia in Hindi literature
by
Alessandra Consolaro
!
Abstract: This paper focuses on some Hindi literary texts presenting LGBT protagonists.
While literature in English from India has recently shown the production of texts by LGBT
authors, this seems to be totally absent in literature in Hindi. Nevertheless, “homosexual stories” have been represented in a number of novels, short stories, and non-fictional texts, both
in the past and in recent times. I will analyze the way these texts construe “the homosexual”
in order to discuss whether they can be considered LGBT literature, defined both as the corpus of texts written for and by the LGBT communities, and as texts focussing on issues, characters, and narratives related to those communities. I will problematize the notion of gender
and the heterocentred stance that remains visible even in texts that were considered highly
challenging when published.
In search of Hindi khu! literature
Before discussing the specific topic of this article, I would like to position it by
saying a few words on gender studies in the academic world I work in, more specifically regarding the study of South Asia. Women/gender studies became institutionally formalized in Italy only in the late 1990s and remain generally “masked”,
hidden within single courses and inside separated disciplines. As for postmodern
and/or postcolonial critique and diaspora studies, while these are flourishing in other departments, they seem to be absent from the field of South Asian studies in Italy. The result is that gender is generally not considered as an academically relevant
field of research in Italian Indology. Not long time ago, in an official PhD seminar,
a colleague of mine specializing in Sanskrit and Indian Philosophy defined researchers (like me) investigating gender issues as persons affected by “linguistic
tics such as gender politics”, following “cultural fashions”. My students and colleagues tend to qualify their research procedures and findings as factual, objective
and divorced from personal values and interests – feminist or otherwise – and write
Alessandra Consolaro is Adjunct Associate Professor, University of Turin, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures Hindi language and literature and South Asian culture to undergraduate and
graduate students. She is Director of book series: Ratnam!l!, a bilingual editions of narrative texts
from modern and contemporary Indian literatures, published by A Oriente!, Milano and Member of
the editorial board, Kervan - International Journal of Afro-Asiatic Studies edited by professors at the
Universities of Turin and Enna http://www.kervan.unito.it.
!
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Alessandra Consolaro
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themselves out of their final projects. As the pace of work is hectic and time is always pressing, practical methodical questions usually take precedence over a thorough inquiry into the researchers’ own epistemic locations, agency and convictions. I am radically critical of this situation, and I am convinced that a serious reconsideration of methods and techniques used in Italy in the study not only of Hindi Language and Literature, but of South Asia in general is badly needed. As for
the Hindi literary field, the exploration of issues of sexuality, power, and marginalized populations (the “Other”) in literature and culture has long been confined to
writings by middle class, hegemonic authors. Even today, when Dalit literature has
entered Indian university curricula, queer theory is confined to sociological analysis. It may touch some Departments of English, but cannot aspire to gain access to
Hindi Departments, where, quoting Uday Prak!", one feels like having “been
transported by a time machine to another place and time” (2001: 48). If we want to
imagine a future for studies on home and belonging, identity, subjectivity, otherness and so on, queer studies too must be taken into account. Notions of body, territory, globalization can be analyzed as problematic in relation to queerness, insofar as queer people are at best tolerated by society: they may be legally recognized,
but often they are a sort of non-expelled diaspora within society. Therefore it must
be investigated whether queerness is a legal condition, a scholarly construct, or a
subjective experience. This article is my present contribution on this issue, focusing on some specimens of Hindi literature dealing with queerness.
In Hindi various terms are used in order to talk about queer issues: ku!r is the
transcription of the English “queer”, but it is not common; khu", is the Hindi term
for “happy, gay”, and is generally used by queer people to describe themselves.
The most common term in essays and published material is samlai#gik, of the same
sex. I have written elsewhere about issues regarding Hindi queer literature (Alessandra Consolaro 2011, 300-308): if queer literature is to be considered as the corpus of literary texts produced by and for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, that is the queer – hence the acronym LGBTIQ that is used in some queer
literature – communities, or dealing with topics and presenting characters and plots
that are of interest for those communities, then some khu" texts are available in
Hindi literature. Yet, the homophobic character of many of them has been pointed
out in the pioneering work by Ruth Vanita and Saleem Kidwai (2000). Cecilia Cossio (2003) translated into Italian and analyzed two Hindi short stories with hijra
protagonists: R!mb!b# N$rav’s Aurat na hone k$ dard (The sorrow of not being a
woman) and L$v$ris ke v$ris (Heirs of heirless people) by An$t! R!ke". Also the
studies by scholars like Giti Thadani (1996), Ashwini Sukthankar (1999), and Maya Sharma (2006), focusing on lesbian issues, have shown the gap between a
common representation of queer people in films or literary works as borderline
bugs, criminals, mentally sick, or persons deprived of heterosexual coitus, and the
– difficult, but real – life of people who do not conform to any single sexual category and do not seek acceptance, who, confident of their preferences, simply exist
and struggle.
The existing literature on queer writing in Hindi analyzes texts that are decades
old. This paper is a small contribution to update these studies, focusing on two pieces of Hindi fiction written around 2009. This is an important date for Indian queer
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communities. In that year, the High Court of Delhi struck Section 377 out of the
Indian Penal Code which criminalized sexual activity “against the order of nature”
(Arvind Narrain and Alok Gupta 2011). Emboldened by legal recognition and a
rapidly growing “khush rights movement”, queer Indians started to speak out
(Arvind Narrain and Gautam Bhan 2005; Gautam Bhan 2006). As queer theorists
all over the world have challenged assumptions of heteronormativity – the belief
that heterosexuality is “normal” while any other sexual preference is not – also in
India there has been a discussion about de-centering of normativity, and India’s
own pride parade has become a rather vibrant one.
Also the literary and publishing field has been affected by this vitality. In 2010
publisher Shobhna Kumar and editor Minal Hajratwala – both lesbians of Indian
origin – founded Queer Ink, an online retailer specializing in books on sexuality
and gender. They also organized the first Queer Book Fair held in the country, with
“identity” as the central theme. The 2011 Mumbai LitFest hosted a panel discussion titled “Queer Writing: Do We Need Such A Category?”, with the participation
of Giti Thadani, Shobhna Kumar, Hoshang Merchant, Jerry Pinto and others. The
2012 Jaipur literary festival – Asia’s largest literary festival – introduced the first
panel on queer writing, and while threats from conservative religious activists
against Salman Rushdie forced him to pull out of the festival, the conversation between Raj Rao and Hoshang Merchant caused little to no stir. As early as 2004,
Yoda Press – an independent publishing venture based in New Delhi focusing on
the “non-mainstream, alternative contemporary India”– launched an interdisciplinary series called “Sexualities”, edited by Gautam Bhan, taking “an intersectional
approach as the basis of its understanding of sexuality, seeing it as inextricably
linked with the politics of class, caste, religion, language, and location in contemporary India” (yodapress.in/Sexuality.html). But before 2009, queer writing had
made only sporadic appearances in India. Today, although little of this genre is
read, new voices and books have begun to make small inroads into the literary
mindscape and the publishing scene. The publishers are also becoming aware that
there are readers who identify themselves as queer, and after the repealing of Sec
377 of IPC, writers became more confident about articulating their views. This
notwithstanding, it took Queer Ink months to protect authors by ensuring that the
legal responsibility for the book’s content was with the publisher, not with the individual authors, should the work ultimately be deemed offensive under India’s indecency laws. And even so, many of the authors still choose to remain anonymous.
A further complication comes by the fact that in December 2013 section 377 was
reinstated by a Supreme Court ruling, which held that amending or repealing Section 377 should be a matter left to Parliament, not the judiciary.
There seems to be a split between the “khu" movement” and “khu" writing”.
While the former is moving towards acceptance in civil society, the latter is still
not very visible and audible. Stories and novels from writers should be read not because of their own or their characters’ gender preferences, but irrespective of gendered concerns, and queer writing has to be read as an integral and evolving part of
world literature, important and self-sustaining. Introducing a separate category for
queer writing may be interpreted as creating a closed-off ghetto, but on the other
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Alessandra Consolaro
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hand, mainstream literary criticism, which is the only way to get visibility, tends to
not consider it at all.
Another issue regards the widespread notion that queer outing is linked to the
adoption of a Western lifestyle. With the growing instances of right-wing groups
taking up the role of protectors of “Indian culture”, life is certainly not a bed of
roses for the khu" writers. On the other hand, India has always had one of the
world’s richest treasures of same-sex and gender-transgressing stories, since ancient times. Devdutt Pattanaik (2002) wrote on sexual transformation, gender metamorphosis, and alternative sexualities in ancient Hindu texts, but he also pointed
out that these myths and tales have to be inscribed in a heterosexual and patriarchal
construct, where sex change, cross-dressing, same-sex intercourse, and other queer
activities are bound to be considered undesirable, as they threaten the dominant
discourse. Queer scholars like Ruth Vanita (2002), and writers like Hoshang Merchant (2000), have emphasized that terms like y$r$n$ or s$kh!y$n!, connoting great
tenderness in same-sex bonding – both male-male and female-female – refer to a
cultural heritage that has been present in India for centuries. With more authors
choosing queer themes for their work, a same-sex story no longer remains taboo for
Indian writers. Queer fiction in English flourishes, English being the language of
urban middle-class people, the social group that has mostly been affected by the
“pink revolution”. On the contrary, there is relatively less noise about it in regional
languages. This is one of the reasons why queer writing in languages other than
English should also be investigated.
Pa"khv#l$ n#v and %&dhere k# ga'it
When I started exploring the Hindi literary field in order to find samples of recent queer literature, I found out that little was available. Tirohit, a novel by
G$t!ñjali %r$ published in 2001, is about the friendship of two women that might
have also some lesbian shades. The main characters are two women having a very
close relationship allowing for strong intimacy: they share everything, sleep together, and in one scene they are shown on the roof, stripping naked in intimacy
(G$t!ñjali %r$ 2001, pp.158-160). When I interviewed the author, she rejected the
idea that the text suggests any lesbian relation, pointing out that this is a Western
way of reading things that does not necessarily fit the Indian context (Alessandra
Consolaro 2007, pp.131-132). Actually, in highly gender-segregated societies, such
as India, same-sex friendship and spaces are generally more approved of by parents
than opposite-sex friendship and mixed gender space. Free mixing of sexes is not
allowed, especially after puberty is reached, and a person spends much time with
members of the same sex. Having friendship or emotional attachment in such relationships is quite common, and even when sexual behaviors develop, sexual engagement is not displayed publicly and leaving the family to assert individual liberty and rights is preferred. In this social context, homosocial behaviors such as sharing a bed, body massaging, and hugging or kissing between same sex members is
not interpreted as homosexual relationships.
My attention was later attracted by Pa%khv$l! n$v (The winged boat), a novel
published in 2009 by Pa&kaj Bi'(. I had read about it on Sun$l D$pak’s blog Jo na
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Alessandra Consolaro
DEP n. 25 / 2014
kah sake, who had commented about it when it was published in installments in
Ha%s in 2007 (Sun$l D$pak 2007). When I talked to Sun$l about my research, he
offered to help me establish contacts, and he published a post inviting Hindi writers
to contact him if they wanted to share any texts related to queer issues (Sun$l D$pak
2013). Not much happened, but after some time he received the short story
&'dhere k$ ga(it (Darkness figuring) by Pa)kaj Sub$r, which he forwarded to me.
The author introduced it as a carcit kah$n!, an expression that in the Hindi field
means a piece of fiction that has had wide circulation among literati. It was published in Kath$kram, a leading Hindi literary magazine, and was included in the
short story collection )s* I(+iy$ Kampan! (East India Company), published by
Bh!rt$ya Jñ!np$(h, which was awarded the New Writing Award by the same institution in 2008. Pa%khv$l! n$v and &'dhere k$ ga(it – which, to my knowledge,
have not yet been translated into any European language, which justifies the presence of extensive plot summaries in this article – are written by educated, middleclass, straight male authors who wish to address a topic that is considered taboo in
the Hindi field: the issue of “men having sex with men”. This definition, which
arose within the sexual health NGO movement in the early 1990s, is sometimes
meant to be a “more culturally appropriate” term for same-sex sexual interaction
between men (Chakrapani Venkatesan et al. 2002), but has been discussed (Rebecca M Young and Ilan H. Meyer 2005).
Born on 20 February 1946 in Mumbai, Pa&kaj Bi'( is a socially active intellectual who has engaged in several intense debates. After working for over thirty years
in different positions with Ministry of Information – including editing of magazines such as Ak$"v$(i and &jkal – he took early retirement in 1999 in order to devote himself to independent writing and publishing. Since then he has been involved in publishing and editing the thought-provoking Hindi monthly Samay$%tar (Time-lapse), a “little magazine” whose first avatar was in the 70s – it was
a powerful voice of dissent during the Emergency – and is entirely devoted to contemporary issues concerned with radical social and political engagements. This
magazine has many readers and also a few enemies, as it relentlessly reports on irregularities and malpractices in various institutions meant to promote Hindi language and literature, highlighting discussion on important but neglected issues in
Hindi media, and translating serious analysis published elsewhere in English.
Pa&kaj Bi'( is a renowned fiction writer, who has published two other novels (Lekin darv$z$, 1982 and Us ci,iy$ k$ n$m, 1989) and many collections of short stories (among which A%dhere se with As*ar Vaj!hat 1976; Pandrah jam$ pacc!s,
1980; Bacce gavah nah!% ho sakte?, 1985; Golu aur Bholu, 1994).
Pa&kaj Sub$r (born 1975) lives in Sehore, MP. He is an established representative of the so-called “New generation” of Hindi fiction writers and poets, and was
awarded the 2010 New Writing Award by Bh!rt$ya Jñ!np$(h for his novel Ye vo
sahar to nah!%. Besides )s* I(+iy$ Kampan!, he published another collection of
short stories (Mahu$ gha*v$rin aur anya kah$niy$%). He also writes Hindi poetry
and -azal-s, and is a blogger (S!hor, http://sehore.blogspot.it/; Sub!r sa%v$d sev$,
http://www.subeerin.blogspot.it/).
Both authors are apparently animated by concern and empathy towards the protagonists of their fiction, who are queer men. Both texts address the issue of how in
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India khu" sex is easier to find than khu" love, because sex needs only short bouts
of privacy, while love – meant as a stable socially-recognized relationship – needs
the partners to deal with family and society. In the end, both fictions show the intense prejudice against lesbians, gay men, and bisexual people that is still widespread in India, resulting in what would be described as “homophobic texts” in Europe. The public opinion has increasingly opposed sexual orientation discrimination, but expressions of hostility toward lesbians and gay men remain common in
contemporary society and official expressions of homophobia continued even after
the decriminalization of homosexuality. In 2011 Gulam Nabi Azad, the Minister of
Health and Family Welfare, made a public statement reflecting the widespread social attitude to homosexuality, considering it as a disease to be cured, an abnormality to set right, and a crime to be punished. In December 2013 the Supreme
Court upheld the constitutional validity of Section 377 of the IPC, which criminalizes gay and lesbian sex, causing growing fears of discrimination among India’s
sexual minorities, and reviving the debate about consensual relationships between
adults and sexual preferences as individual choices.
Pa%khv$l! n$v introduces a character named Vikram Si&h, an advertisement
painter telling the story of Anupam Kum!r, a creative director who joins his company, named Image India, in Delhi in 1986 (Pa&kaj Bi'( 2009: 18. Page numbers
are given in brackets in the text; all translations from Hindi are mine). The structure of the novel is quite straightforward and conventional. The opening and closing chapters build a frame: “thirteen years later” Vikram with a former colleague
from Delhi visit Anupam’s mother in an old house in Dehradun; in between a long
flashback recalls some events in the life of Anupam. This chronological setting positions the narrated events around the neoliberal turn in India, which took shape at
the beginning of the 1990s. The novel is informed by an unflinching heteronormativity. Although several decades of research and clinical experience have led mainstream medical and mental health organizations in the USA and Europe to conclude that LGBTIQ etc. orientations represent normal forms of human experience,
and that these relationships are normal forms of human bonding, Anupam is portrayed as a disturbed person, following a widespread stereotype: “Eternal instability, restlessness, and scandal were constantly following Anupam” (100). He is represented as a very talented person: he is extremely clever, speaks very good Hindi
and English, is a gifted poet with published poems. He is also technologically advanced, being acquainted with computers, which at that time was not a common
skill in India. But he is described as an instable person, stubborn, individualistic,
unable to cooperate and collaborate with other people, almost violent, and introverted: “A strange alertness prevented him to open up”, “he was constantly disquiet like a radar antenna searching out something” (15), “he would never speak out
clearly his ideas and projects, but he would rather put them on in bits and pieces,
like a chess player, so that people working with him could not guess until the end
which direction he was taking the game and how it would end” (16). Last but not
least, he behaves in a “European” way (15). His salary is very high, but he can
never save money and he keeps on changing jobs as he is a liar, constantly quarrelling with his colleagues, and is surrounded by a bad reputation. He even gets into
debt because of some dubious relations he entertains with lovers who are drug ad6
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dicts, and other unreliable people. His acquaintances are mostly people living at the
fringes of respectability, moving in a space constructed as deviant, somewhat dirty,
often un-Indian, not respectable, repugnant, unnatural, and pathological. His whole
experience is a sum of stereotypes about queer people: for instance, that the relationships of lesbians and gay men are necessarily dysfunctional, unhappy and unstable, and that the goals and values of queer couples are ineluctably different from
those of heterosexual couples. The final judgment on Anupam is that he “was victim of this personality disorder: if this was not perversion, he had somehow, in
some other way strayed from the path, and he was now oppressed by this, but was
not ready to admit it” (87).
On the contrary, the narrator is a champion of conformity to social patriarchal
norms: he is married, has two children, he spends his evenings and nights going out
and drinking with male friends while his wife Sumitr! happily waits for him within
the domestic walls, and dutifully worries if he is late. She is characterized by a
“motherly, uterine (she is the second sister of three brothers) and extremely vehement altruistic nature”, which is immediately aroused when she gets to know about
Vikram’s strange and lonely friend (37). The confinement of the wife in the protected household space reminds the reader that in India urban public spaces are
symbolically and literally occupied by men, while women occupy a disproportionately smaller percentage of public space in cities, even though they comprise approximately fifty percent of the population. If women are in urban public spaces,
they are usually with a man or in a group – with other women and/or men– and are
pressed to occupy this public space as “respectable” middle-class and uppermiddle-class women – as compared with the role played by sex workers (Shilpa
Phadke, Sameera Khan, and Shilpa Ranade 2011). No wonder Vikram, an icon of
middle-class heteronormativity, “spontaneously” and “naturally” exhibits his masculinity whenever a good-looking woman is around, and is even gratified when he
finds out that Anupam is in love with him, although he rejects any behavior that
might endanger his status of righteous man, upholder of the straight patriarchal order. When Anupam makes a pass at him, he expresses disgust (57-58).
Vikram is convinced that sex is only justified within a married couple, and that
in any case its natural goal is reproduction. Anything else is dangerous and/or perverted. Interestingly enough, though he describes himself as not caring about his
body, he is very pleased to repeatedly stress how his well-built, tall body is better
looking than other bodies, especially the bodies of gay men, who appear to him as
being in love with their own body. In a passage the narrator happens to meet
Anupam’s former lover, and immediately notes with masculine pride that he is not
very good looking, especially if compared to himself (97).
His feeling of physical and moral superiority is well exemplified also by the
passage telling his encounters with %armi"(h!. She is an extremely beautiful woman with whom Anupam has a complex relationship, having performed with her an
“experiment”, a sort of medical test that proved his inability to coition, and that is
described by the narrator as a “failure”. When they first meet, Vikram starts flirting
with her, exhibiting his straight and manly nature. Later, commenting on this, he
explains it as “a sort of defense mechanism”, due to the fact that he is “constantly
agitated and alert” when he is with Anupam (70). %armi"(h!, who is not confirming
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to the role prescribed by heteronormativity, is herself a “failure”: she is adulterous,
constantly in search of thrill, willing to have a triangled relation with Anupam and
her husband, ready to have an affair with Vikram. This is outrageous for the narrator, who strongly stigmatizes this behavior.
Vikram is the only person in the office who enters into a friendly relationship
with Anupam, as the latter has a peculiar ability to turn everybody against him.
Vikram listens to Anupam’s reasoning about the need to come out of the closet, to
discuss and reject fixed gender roles, to reformulate notions of motherhood and
sexuality. The novel is replete with a repertoire of arguments about homosexuality
and the modern world, yet the final stance is that there is no place for people like
Anupam in this society. This is another pivotal aspect of the novel, and it is also
one of the bulwarks of the conservative argument on the topic in India. Queer orientation and behavior are definitely linked to Western influence, as if they were an
imported phenomenon connected to the exposure to an external culture. Anupam is
fond of music and poetry, and many passages contain enumerations about writers,
singers, and painters, creating a sort of queer canon: classic paperbacks (Borges,
Marquez, Calvino, Vargas Llosa, Rushdie, Eco) plus some romantic novels and
thrillers; biographies of Charlie Chaplin, Pablo Neruda, Isadora Duncan, a collection of letters by Oscar Wilde, and some classic collections of poetry by Rimbaud,
Rilke, Lorca, Muktibodh, Firaq and Galib. Anupam emotionally recites Two Loves
by Lord Alfred Douglas, presenting also a Hindi translation of it, and quotes the
famous -azal by Iqbal containing a couplet mentioning Mahmud Ghaznavi’s young
male lover. Anupam’s flat exhibits paintings by Bhupen Khakkar – a pioneering
Indian gay artist – but also Michelangelo’s famous naked statue of David; moreover, he listens almost compulsively to cassettes by Bach, Mozart, Chopin, and
Zubin Mehta’s concerts. As for rock music, he likes Bob Dylan, and is a particular
fan of Freddy Mercury, whose Indian origins he stresses as if to prove that being
queer and being Indian are not antonymous, even if Freddy Mercury’s unruly life
and death by AIDS are eventually used by Vikram as an argument in favor of the
opposite position. The narrator, in fact, constructs himself conversely as naively
unaware of the queer implications of this canon. He is a “normal”, straight, sound
Indian young man, who can barely speak simple English, who does not know who
Oscar Wilde was, and is shocked when he finds out what “other kind of love”
caught David, Jonathan, Plato, Michelangelo and Shakespeare. He likes old film!
songs – just the old ones, he specifies, “up to the 70s”– and cannot even understand
Indian classical music, but enjoys “soft classical” such as -azal-s.
In a sense, there is no real friendship between the protagonists of the novel:
Anupam is constantly portrayed as situated in a minority position, while Vikram
plays the role of the elder brother, patronizing the subaltern younger man. Anupam
is prey to a cupio dissolvi, he seems doomed to a bad end, and in fact he will die, a
suicide, in Goa – another icon of postmodern and Western lifestyle. As for Vikram,
he distances himself from Anupam in an effort to maintain his good reputation, and
when the latter moves abroad, their relation becomes purely nominal. Notwithstanding this, there is an episode that shows a strong emotional tie between both
men, when Vikram bids farewell to Anupam at the airport: there is a strong embrace, and suddenly the narrator runs away, hides himself in the toilet and bursts
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into tears. After a while, a cleaner consoles him telling him that even if his younger
brother has gone, one should not be so childishly emotional. In public, surrounded
by other men, Vikram feels compelled to recover and avoid any further inquiry. On
leaving the airport he recalls a song by Freddy that Anupam often sang: I was born
to love you! (98-99). In this passage a sort of narcissism can be detected, as the
“straight” man is gratified by the very idea that he is the object of desire of another
man, even if he does not openly respond to this feeling.
A feature shared by both Pa%khv$l! n$v and &'dhere k$ ga(it is the explanation of the insurgence of queer orientation in the protagonists. Endorsing the Freudian explanation of homosexuality, in Pa%khv$l! n$v Vikram reads Anupam’s relation to women as a reaction to his mother’s dominating behavior: after the death of
his father he grew up with a possessive mother and sister, who were very protective. His attraction to men and the idealization of women is attributed to this lack of
a masculine figure in his childhood. The text cursorily explains that lesbians also
behave this way because of their husbands’ impotency (74-75). But the main cause
for what is considered a sexual deviation is the fact that both male characters experienced gang rape in adolescence. Anupam is gang raped in college by a group of
youngsters led by his childhood friend who would then become his lover/master.
He survives an attempted suicide, and from then he starts a series of sexual relations with lovers whose nicknames – blind, bellied, dwarf, Vibh$'a+, Tuglak,
N!dir"!h, Hitler – show both his victimizing role, and a despising feeling.1
The unnamed protagonist of &'dhere k$ ga(it also gets his sexual initiation at
the wedding procession of a friend’s brother: a group of drinking adults make him
drink, and later rape him while he is sleeping in intoxication. He has few memories
of the event, apart from pain. Sometime later a friend explains to him what had
happened, and they establish a s$th! relationship. This implies physical intimacy,
but does not involve an emotional attachment or involvement: the sexual experience is constantly described as devoid of real pleasure, but is rather an irrational fit
of madness, “volcano eruption”, “fire in the dark jungle”, “a silent journey in cold
sparks” that he keeps on looking for in what psychoanalysis would define as traumatic fixation. Throughout the short story there is no mention of pleasure, care, affection, or love: there is just physical need, something that is not consciously understandable. Everything connected to it happens in the dark, is not clearly visible
(keywords are: fog, haze, shadow) and happens in a frenzy. There is a clear contraposition between this “figuring in the darkness” and “normal” life in the light, the
world where life goes on “at its usual speed, the same manners, school, college,
job, all the same”.
The protagonist is a migrant in Mumbai: he hails from a qasba in Bihar and
moved to Mumbai in search of a job. His life is full of loneliness, exhaustion from
long commuting on local trains, but above all the obsession of sex. Meanwhile, his
mother keeps on sending letters wishing to arrange his marriage. He is somewhat
1
Vibh$!a" was a king appearing in the R$m$ya!a, the younger half-brother of the rak"as king
R!va"a of Lanka who joined R!m's army against his wicked brother. Tuglak was the name of a Muslim dynasty of Turkic origin which established a Delhi sultanate in India in the 14th century. N!dir"!h
(1688–1747) ruled as Shah of Iran (1736–47) and is remembered for his cruelty.
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attracted by “the light of wedding”, but this would imply renouncing his darkness,
which he cannot do: “there is no solution for his figuring in the darkness now”.
He has no way of solving his problem, apart from visiting disreputable places:
in large Indian cities, especially in metros, the “gay scene” is visible: cruising areas
that serve both as pick-up areas and also as areas where men can have sex with
other men. Cruising areas are frequented not only by gays, but also by other men
having sex with men who resist any “gay” label. The character in the short story
describes a cinema hall named “Toffees” – a nickname for male prostitutes – where
he meets a shadowy character that he calls Shah Rukh Khan. Otherwise, only when
he gets back to his town for a few days can he spend some time with his friend and
get satisfaction. The rest is thirst, loneliness, “watching himself in the mirror”.
While commuting to and from work he observes men on the train, in search of
“shades of darkness” on their face: he has neither feeling, nor questioning, but only
calculation, the need to satisfy his urge. Eventually, the unnamed protagonist meets
a young man, Tanmay Saksen!: they happen to travel on the same train and one
day, being the only passengers in a coach, they start talking. During the conversation he finds out that Tanmay too is from Bihar, and is desperately in need for a
place to stay. The protagonist suggests that he moves to his place on 15th August,
when he will be at home for Independence Day. At night they have sex. The experience is described as happening in darkness, with Tanmay's “warrior”, a “blurred
shadow” entering the protagonist’s “darkness” in a burning sensation of shattering
tempest. The next morning the protagonist receives a phone call from his qasba: his
friend announces that his wedding has been organized, and invites him to come
soon. But the protagonist doesn’t even listen to him; he just cuts the call and
switches the phone off. The story ends with the protagonist wishing that he might
spend ten years free from cares with Tanmay, the same way he had spent ten years
with his friend. He thinks that he will probably no longer return to his qasba, now
that this “calculation in the darkness” has reached another unstable solution.
The protagonist of this short story is doomed to keep his identity a secret: his
partner Tanmay, the active one, is at least given a proper name, but he is denied
even that, and the very idea of having committed relationships is negated. Both he
and Tanmay are objectified. They do not relate to each other as human beings, but
are turned into mere mechanical instruments able to satisfy some physical need.
There is no self-awareness of same-sex attractions, and they do not even conceive
the idea of “coming out”, as if lesbian, gay, and bisexual people’s experiences were
totally distant from real life, a surreal/nightmarish existence to be lived in a dark
universe. The relationship described between the characters of &'dhere k$ ga(it
reflects both lack of self-identity and internalized homophobia. Only when there is
a self-conscious queer identity can one “come out”. Today, an increasing number
of middle-class Indian gays are “coming out of the closet”, much to the disapproval
and consternation of their families, but that too is in very small numbers and often
the media credit the growth of queer life to satellite television and the Internet.
Queer relations remain in most cases a private affair.
Queer discourses
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In the previous section I introduced the Hindi novel Pa%khv$l! n$v and the
Hindi short story &'dhere k$ ga(it, pointing out that their treatment of queer issues confirms the persistence of heteronormative prejudices even in those authors
who try to address queer issues with a sincere belief that they are being sympathetic and inclusive. One of the most powerful influences on heterosexuals’ acceptance
of khu" people is having personal contact with a queer person who is not hiding
his/her identity, but this is not easy in a society where heteropatriarchal ideologies
of shame and duty, coupled with cultural and structural violence, continue to be
powerfully articulated by post/neo-colonial forms of homophobia. The fictional
texts I analyzed deal with gay men in a way that reflects some issues that are particularly relevant in order to explain both the ambivalence of straight authors when
dealing with queer topics, and possibly the reason why queer literature is not very
visible in Hindi. The nuances of homophobia that remain present in these texts
might be better interpreted if we take into account the social meaning of sexuality
in South Asia, connected as it is to a culture of shame, where family and community respect and honor holds sway, and the individual self tends to be negated before
the community and family (Chakrapani Venkatesan et al. 2002). Sex is generally
understood only in a reproductive sense, sexual behaviors are rendered invisible,
and there is a general pressure to reproduce. To this can be added a widespread
segregation of genders, acceptability of male homo-sociability and homo-affection,
male dominance over public space and discourse.
The complex ecosystem of alternate sexual life in Indian society is governed by
colonial laws, religious norms and morality, and a pseudo-urban mind-set that
tends to associate sexual offences and alternate life styles. The numerous debates
on khu" sexuality in South Asia have been variously categorized, and of course
they are not monolithic, but intermingle, overlap each other, and ally in disparate
ways, creating new potential models for coalition and solidarity. As Suparna
Bhaskaran pointed out (2004: 97-106), we can identify categories ranging from
virulent homophobia to the “queer Indian fluid soul theory”, but also a ‘global
queer’ narrative arguing that the global-modern gay identity is an inevitable consequence of modernity, globalization, and the exchange and movements of ideas and
persons, coexisting with a position suggesting that indigenous same-sex/gender
sexualities (more or less easily) coexist with postcolonial modern forms of samesex sexualities.
In the global discourse on queerness, open sexual politics and visibility of queer
identities are considered necessarily something positive: sexual and gender plurality, sexual preference, sexual identity and “coming out” have become an important
indicator of a so-called “developed” society. In general, queer identities are emerging in countries broadly corresponding with the global South, which have relatively
recently opened up their economies to neoliberal capital by adopting IMFsponsored structural adjustment politics of sexual identity in newly globalizing
economies.
Pa%khv$l! n$v’s setting in the field of advertising at the end of the 1980s reminds us that the development of queer literature in India is definitely linked to the
process of globalization, trade liberalization, and opening of the Indian economy to
foreign direct investment that started in 1991. Confessing one’s sexual identity as a
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means to uncover personal “truth” is a relatively recent phenomenon in India,
where “out” queer people were not visible until the 1990s. Though the writing of
romantic same-sex love stories and forms of poetry about same-sex relations that
can be traced back in pre-independent India, writers of such fiction or poetry who
happened to be queer hardly ever confessed their sexual identity publicly. Quite a
contrary trend is observed in late 1980s-India, or more specifically in late 1990s,
when authors dealing with the subject of homosexuality “came out” with their sexual identity through their writing, particularly in the preface, introduction or
acknowledgement section of their books, that took the form of “confession”. This
change began with a small group of writers and film makers of Indian origin whose
relative openness was mostly due to their diasporic locations: they were born and
brought up in the West and had successfully established themselves in the Western
academic and professional world (Ratti Rakesh 1993). This “confessional” tradition also spread to queer writers based in India, such as Giti Thadani (1996)
Ashwini Sukthanker (1999), Hoshang Merchant (1999), and later Salim Kidwai
and Ruth Vanita (2000; Vanita 2005, 2006). Since 1991, the process of “coming
out” has become more overt, at a pace that can indeed be called a revolution, and
has spread from creative writing to political action and assertion of one's own identity, and a demand for a queer-space.
Parallel to the arrival of multinational and transnational corporations, India also
saw the appearance of multinational and transnational NGOs, focusing on three
“hot topics”: HIV/AIDS prevention, promoting sexual health and sexual rights, and
reproductive health. Their primary purpose was to collaborate with indigenous organizations and act as a financial and technical support, providing agency
(http://www.unaids.org/en/regionscountries/countries/india/), with the effect that
local NGO-businesses also mushroomed in every part of the country
(http://www.infosem.org/orgs.htm). AIDS discourses largely produced India as a
“sexually repressed” and “sexually tabooed” society, in which HIV spreads faster
than in the West (Subir K. Kole 2007). In the name of providing technical support
and capacity building, the Western discourse about development was introduced
into NGO programs as if it were truths and immutable norms. In order to reduce
new HIV infection, Indians must be made comfortable about their own sexuality, to
discuss sex openly, without discomfort: program strategies established queer film
festivals, gay pride parades, queer advertising, queer films, queer networks, support
groups, queer NGOs, and queer reporting (Arvind Narrain and Vinay Chandran
2011). Queer communities started a mobilization mediated by globalization, and
the backlash of this new visibility was a simultaneous strengthening of “homophobic” discourses of heterosexist nationalism in India, and sometimes increased police violence, proving the saying that “a victim who can articulate their status as
victim, ceases to be a victim and becomes a threat”. Even among Leftist intellectuals and activists, sexual politics was sometimes received with strong disapproval,
as shown by the 1996-7 debate on homosexual rights in the eminent leftist journal
Economic and Political Weekly shows (Vimal Balasubrahmanyan 1996; H. Srikanth 1996; Sharmila Rege 1996; H. Srikanth 1997).
What I want to emphasize is that there must be a balance between the “rights
based approach” and the right for diverse societies to preserve and uphold sexual
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diversity, gender plurality, sexual rights and freedom in their own way, without
necessarily creating a binary opposition of both approaches. It is erroneous to argue
tout court that societies where sexual minorities are not politically organized as
LGBTIQ etc., necessarily repress queer cultures. Queer identities may emerge in
different societies in different ways, and without the political rhetoric of the West
that recognizes the interrelationships of social, political, economic and cultural
structures far from a linear progressive model toward Western-style queerness. Gay
International tries to export ideas of homosexuality and sexual difference based on
nomenclatures that turn sexual politics into claims before law. This, however, reproduces the colonial categorization of sexual dissidence that reads bodies through
markers of skin and sex acts that do not correspond to reproductive heteronormative familial models. This fails to account for embodied performances that defy
quantification of sex/gender. Perhaps, sexual citizenship after Orientalism might
move outside market-driven cultures of sex as property and legal entitlement: it
might involve a liberation of epistemologies, thoughts, and desires that lie dormant
within the Western scholarly and political imagination. The notion that sexual freedom has not “arrived” unless it is articulated in the English language and readily
comprehensible to Western observers is based on a reductive view of sex in nonWestern contexts, and in general. Globalization places the Indian body within a society of control in which Western HIV/AIDS prevention ventures, funding bodies,
and secular Western feminist scholarship are all conjoined. The queer subject of
“rights” is tied to global capitalist structures of aid in ways that potentially advance
neocolonial power relations.
I suggest there should be a move away from sexed/gendered bodies as infantilized, victimized citizens who need to be raised to the heights of full citizenship if
they are to approximate hegemonic ideas of sexual and political maturity. Vulnerable queer bodies are all used to reproduce paternalism, which masks global economic imperialism. An imagining of sexual politics that does not reproduce structures of racism, imperialism, and geopolitical power relations might involve moving away from vulnerability to a different articulation of identity remarked. This is
not to underestimate the violence and silencing directed at the queer communities:
like other queer individuals, also khu" writers suffer from censorship, invisibility,
lack of publishing options, political repression, backlash from families and political
or religious groups, and the lack of personal confidence that can come from oppression. Yet, queer people form a community of resilience, they are students,
teachers, Dalit, villagers, doctors, engineers, lawyers, journalists, executives,
Brahmins, Christians, Sikhs, Muslims, etc. They are also dreamers and strugglers.
The real challenge for khu" education and creativity in India – and other postcolonial cultures – is to recognize a new composite queer identity that is neither uncritically Western nor simply an unimaginative regression to ancient or medieval erotic
practices.
Insofar as queerness entails a displacement of heteronormative or otherwise
hegemonic stratifications, a queer perspective constitutes an interrogation of the
way in which all – not only queer – individuals are constructed as gendered bodies
within a given social space.
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Accessed March 2014. http://jonakehsake.blogspot.it/2007/11/blog-post_26.html.
D$pak, Sun$l. 2013. “Hind$ me& samlai&gikt! vi'ay par lekhan.” Jo na kah sake
(blog).
March
4.
Accessed
March
2014.
http://jonakehsake.blogspot.it/2013/03/blog-post.html
Kole, Subir K. 2007. “Globalizing queer? AIDS, homophobia and the politics of
sexual identity in India.” Global Health. 3: 8. doi:10.1186/1744-8603-3-8.
Merchant, Hoshang. 2000. Yaraana: Gay Writing from India. New Delhi: Penguin Books.
Narrain, Arvind, and Vinay Chandran, eds. 2011. Medicalisation of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. A Human Rights Resource Book. New Delhi: Yoda
Press.
Narrain, Arvind, and Alok Gupta, eds. 2011. Law Like Love: Queer Perspective
on Law. New Delhi: Yoda Press.
Narrain, Arvind, and Gautam Bhan, eds. 2005. Because I Have a Voice: Queer
Politics in India. New Delhi: Yoda Press.
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Pattanaik, Devdutt. 2002. The man who was a woman and other queer tales
from Hindu lore. New York: Harrington Park Press.
Phadke, Shilpa, Sameera Khan, and Shilpa Ranade. 2011. Why Loiter? Women
And Risk On Mumbai Streets. New Delhi: Penguin.
Prak!", Uday. 2001. P!l! chatr! v$l! la,k!. Nay$ Dill$: R!jkamal Prak!"an.
Ratti, Rakesh, ed. 1993. A Lotus of Another Color: An Unfolding of the South
Asian Gay and Lesbian Experience. Boston: Allyson Publication.
Rege, Sharmila. 1996. “Homophobia in the Name of Marxism.” Economic and
Political
Weekly.
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(22):
1359-1360.
Accessed
March
2014.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/4404212
Samay$%tar http://www.samayantar.com.
Sharma, Maya. 2006. Loving Women: Being Lesbian in Unprivileged India.
New Delhi: Yoda Press.
%r$, G$t!ñjali. 2001. Tirohit. R!jkamal Prak!"an, Nay$ Dill$.
Srikanth, H. 1996. “Natural Is Not Always Rational.” Economic and Political
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975-976.
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2014.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/4404031.
Srikanth, H. 1997. “Marxism, Radical Feminism and Homosexuality.” Economic and Political Weekly. 32 (44/45): 2900-2904. Accessed March 2014.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/4406044.
Sukthankar, Ashwini. 1999. Facing the mirror: Lesbian writing from India.
Delhi: Penguin India.
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London: Cassel.
Vanita, Ruth and Saleem Kidwai. eds. Same-Sex Love in India: Readings from
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Vanita, Ruth. 2005. Love's rite: same-sex marriage in India and the West. New
Delhi: Penguin Books.
Vanita, Ruth. ed. 2002. Queering India: Same-Sex Love and Eroticism in Indian
Culture and Society. New York: Routledge.
Vanita, Ruth. 2006. Gandhi’s Tiger and Sita’s Smile: Essays on Gender, Sexuality and Culture. New Delhi: Yoda Press.
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Young Rebecca M and Ilan H. Meyer. 2005. “The Trouble With “MSM” and
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American Journal of Public Health 95 (7): 1144-1149.
16
Female Homosexuality in the Contemporary Arabic Novel
by
Jolanda Guardi
!
Give name to the nameless so it can be thought
(Audre Lorde)
Abstract: In recent years, a set of novels published in the Arab world have a homosexual (gay
or lesbian) as their main character. Studies on homosexuality and literature in the Arab world
recently published tend to analyze the subject in a dichotomist way, i.e., they tend to be based
only on a historical perspective and offer a monolithic image of homosexuality and Islam and
its literary expression. In this paper, I will read some of these novels to underline how the female homosexual character is still bound to a binary structure of society, thus preventing these novel from being LGTB ones in full, but setting the basis for new developments, the
growth of a new aesthetic form, and a rethinking of the literary canon.
In recent years, several novels have been published in the Arabic language,
whose main subject is female homosexuality. This appears to be a novelty because
until recent years the homosexual character was present, but only as a male one. In
fact, while I was writing the chapter dedicated to Arabic literature on the subject of
a monograph published in 2012 (Jolanda Guardi and Anna Vanzan 2012), I noticed
a negation-silence through the centuries in relation to female homosexuality1 which
seems to be what was called “silent sin”, i.e. so obscene that it cannot even be mentioned. While, on the one hand, I noticed this silence, on the other I found quite a
few classical texts, written mainly by men who generally treated the subject with
irony (e. g. al-Yam!n" 2006; at-T"fa#" 1992). As Sahar Amer puts it: “The Arabic
writings that have survived focus on men much more than women; they remain for
the most part phallocentric and ultimately reflect a male perspective” (Sahar Amer
2009: 221).
What I missed most was a discourse that would propose a reading that takes into account concepts of gender and class and tries to “diffract” and “articulate” inJolanda Guardi is research fellow at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Spain. Her research
focuses on feminist research methodology, contemporary Arab fiction, gender studies and critical discourse analysis. [email protected]
!
1
Several papers and essays have in fact been published, and sources edited too on male homosexuality.
© DEP
ISSN 1824 - 4483
Jolanda Guardi
DEP n. 25 / 2014
stead of representing (Katie King 1994: 97). I think that both class and gender are
mutually and constantly intersected, and gender construction is functional to a discourse of power that proposes a gender hierarchy functional to a heteronormative
sexuality binary division of society. Setting a web of relations in a context, then, is
extremely useful today, when Arab culture in the West is used to redefine the role
of women in our country, while what is called “sexual deviance” (!ud"d) in Arab
newspapers is employed just after the Arab revolutions to present a model of woman which is traditional and functional to a deeply repressive political strategy
(Jolanda Guardi 2012). Therefore what I intend to do is to examine if and how,
within a system which conceives gender as strictly defined, the relationship between women enacts through their bodies, having always in mind that, as Judith
Butler says, a body who does not conform her/himself to the heteropatriarchal
norm is a subversive political body (Judith Butler 1993). To do this, my goal is to
analyze some recent novels written in the Arabic language in their perfomative aspect, that is to seek what they “say to real” and if they actually present a performative subject. I will do this by reading what is written in these novels and what is
not. In fact,
There is no binary division to be made between what one says and what one does not say; we
must try to determine the different ways of not saying such things […] There is not one but
many silences, and they are an integral part of the strategies that underlie and permeate discourses (Michel Foucault 1978: I, 27).
Let us start with an assumption by Frantz Fanon taken from Peau noire,
masques blancs: “Étant endendu que parler, c’est exister absolument pour l’autre”
(Franz Fanon 1971: 36). What I will try to investigate is therefore how and if this
“speaking” is present and, in the affirmative case, if a homosexual “I” does exist in
the contemporary Arabic novel. In this way I attempt to read what Chela Sandoval
calls “the webs of power” (Chela Sandoval 2000) to propose a change of perspective in the reading of Arabic literature as new political identities emerge which alter – with small changes of diffraction – the “malestream” (K. King 1994: 91) canon.
As I mentioned above, it is mostly men who have spoken about female homosexuality, often with irony and/or with an entertainment goal. If this is particularly
true for the classical period – in which literature is abundant – as time went by the
subject became more and more censored. Here and there, some references are conveyed by allusion, and lesbianism is only recalled when referring to Islamic law.
In the contemporary novel, we witness a radical change. The topic comes back
in literature as a real character in novels by both female and male authors. This is a
radical change because it shows us not only characters who are well inserted in
their social milieu and are – at least in their behaviour – openly homosexual, but
also because, in some cases, they question themselves about their sexual identity.
These novels have homosexual hero(ine)s and/or are addressed to a homosexual
reading public. This introduces a small fissure in the main canon. Although situated
at its borders, this literary production breaks in some way the solidity of the normative canon forcing scholars who research Arabic literature to reconsider the literary
canon definition and how to conduct our literary studies, even if change and birth
of a new literary genre are in progress.
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If until some years ago the homosexual act in literature was denied or read as a
symbol for the violence of power (e.g. $am!l al-%it!n" 1989; Naguib Ma&f'(
1995), meaning the negation of subjects and subjectivities; through this recent
change they have became hero(in)es or subjects of literature and, since they take
the floor, they become reality (Judith Butler 1997). Therefore, making oneself acquainted with this literature, and the following critical production – and I would
say that the simple act of studying it is considered, precisely for this reason, a subversive act – creates reality. Moreover, until recent times – and in some way still
today – Arabic literature was subjected to political censorship by authors as well as
by female and male scholars. Such a condemnation, while identifying what cannot
be said, defines it at the same, so produces “words”, i.e. a discourse. In this sense,
censorship precedes the text and, as Judith Butler says, it is someway responsible
for its production (Judith Butler 1997: 191). The censorship mechanism is used in
the production of subjects but also in defining the parameters for establishing what
is admissible and what is not in a specific discourse. The aim is to construct a consensus, where censorship becomes an instrument to support the discourse of power.
My aim is then to see what kind of reality emerges from the reading of these novels, taking into account the role of censorship and self-censorship.
This process involves at least three kinds of discourse: the first is related to female authors, the second regards ourselves as researchers, and the third involves
the act of translating. It is clear from what I have said that the discourse I refer to is
intersected with power and it is a political one, whether we like it or not. The research we do, when we do it, is a political act, as is the act of writing in itself. This
means that I question myself about the mode of writing and the emphasis on what
the heteronormative academic discourse on Arabic literature defines as “critical” as
opposed to what I am writing about. The so-called “critical” language, in fact,
makes me part of the dominant patriarchal forms of domination. The search for
other realities involves the search for a mode of writing with people rather than
about people (Sv)tla *mejrková 2007). As Ghassan Hage affirms: “It is difficult to
imagine a mode of scientific knowledge that does not take part with the logic of
domestication. Yet this knowledge can be at least be tempered with a desire not to
reveal and unveil” (Ghassan Hage 2013). Therefore I strongly believe that no discourse about gender can be analyzed in literature referring only to the philological,
historical or descriptive aspect of a certain work. As Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick affirms:
It becomes truer and truer that the language of sexuality not only intersects with but transforms the other languages and relations by which we know (1990: 2-3).
Since I am talking about literature, another important issue connected to it is
language: to set oneself (as an author as well as a researcher) outside the linguistic
norm means to become a non-subject, which is why it is important for Arab novelists to write in Arabic. 2 At this point, the choice could be silence as a possible
space for resistance – and this is an issue that still has to be studied – that is without
2
There are actually a lot of novels about the topic written in languages other than Arabic (e. g. French
and English), but their impact on the Arab-speaking reading public is of course very different and
they are often written with a Western reader as audience.
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choosing between what can be said and what is “unsayable”. Another alternative is
creating autonomy in the writing space for oneself, remaining within the mainstream canon and undergoing censorship, but creating at the same time a space for
criticism and for the expression of one’s own ideas.
This is what I will try to point out, proposing a reading of the following novels
written in Arabic: Ra#i’at al-qirfa (Cinnamon) by the Sirian author Samer Yazbek
(2008), Mal$mi# (Outlines) by the Saudi author Zaynab +ifn" (2006), Al-$%ar"na
(The Others) by ,ib! al-+arz (2006), also of Saudi origin, and Ana hiya anti (I am
you) by the Lebanese writer Ilh!m Man-'r (2000).3
Power uses a language, which is the heteronormative one, and the questions I
will try to answer are: Are these novels a challenge to heteronormative patriarchy?
Is there a space for autonomy within the canon? What I will try to show is that, although with different shadows, all these novels remain within a binary scenario,
which does not challenge the roots of the heteronormative norm.
Ra#i’at al-qirfa (literally The Scent of Cinnamon), by the Syrian author Samar
Yazbek was published in 2008. The novel was a great success and received very
positive reviews. It describes the ancillary relationship between a woman and her
black servant, and is centred on class differences. The lesbian affair is experienced
as a shelter, as an alternative, on the one hand to an unsatisfactory marriage, and on
the other hand to the class subaltern condition. This hinders the servant from refusing her master’s approach; the latter, at the beginning, seeks a shelter to her boring
bourgeois life. ‘Aliy!, the servant, is sexually exploited by both her employers, the
husband and the wife. However, while the relationship with the man is simply reduced to a sexual performance, between the two women it develops into something
else, though remaining an alternative to a condition of harshness.
Opening her eyes, +anan began to caress her middle, just above her barren womb, which had
never produced a family heir. Only a few hours earlier, ‘Aliy!’s fingers had roamed that same
area, her lips too. As she lay on the bed, +anan brought back to mind her memories of ‘Aliy!,
attempting to understand who the girl was exactly and who she was herself. As the scent of
cinnamon wafted over her once more, she was submerged in a new wave of sadness. She shut
her eyes and wound her arms around her chest. Peering out of the window, +anan spotted
‘Aliy! – a black dot getting smaller and smaller (Samar Yazbek 2008: 71-72; 2012: 621).
+an!n seems to love ‘Aliy!, who is in a sense subdued to her mistress. Yet, one
night she falls asleep in +an!n’s bed, and in the morning the mistress fixes the hierarchical relation: How could you have let yourself stay in my bed until morning?” (Samar Yazbek 2008: 147; 2012: 1362)
At this point, the balance of power is reversed, and the novel ends with a sense
of desolation: with such assumptions, the relation cannot last. In Cinnamon, the
homosexual intercourse is presented as a power relationship between the master
and the black servant, thus perpetrating a sexual patriarchal stereotype:
For +an!n, the girl’s animality was a source of attraction. She would savour the touch of her
fingers as they played on her back drawing pictures, and feel a strange sensation at the sight
of the servant’s dark skin against her own soft white flesh. (Samar Yazbek 2008: 81-82; 2012:
744).
3
The novels will be presented in an order that follows my research path and not a chronological one.
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DEP n. 25 / 2014
The characters have, willing or not, sexual intercourse with men too, for pleasure, duty, advantage or revenge. ‘Aliy! was sold as a child by her father to +an!n’s
rich family, and the lesbian relation is described as something she endures from her
childhood, it is neither a choice nor an orientation. It is something that at some
point she uses to exert some power over her mistress, although a very limited one,
because she can enact it only inside the house. It is clear that both protagonists do
not identify themselves with a lesbian identity – whatever the reason for it – which
is different for each of them.
+an!n too, though very fond of ‘Aliy!, does not seem to feel love. It is rather a
sort of possession and a vindication against her husband, whom she was forced to
marry and does not love. The end of the novel with +an!n, who in her nightdress
drives her car like a fool in search of ‘Aliy!, reminds us more of the desperation of
a child who has lost her toy rather than a human being who has feelings. This attitude is present throughout the novel:
You are still a child; you haven’t yet discovered your secret power source. If you had, you
would have grown up faster. Are you going to stay a child for much longer? When will you
grow up? Little mute. Are you mute? Do you not know how to speak? That’s the worst thing
about you, and the most beautiful thing too. You will be a part of me. No, you cant’ be –
you’re a being of flesh and your eyes are so sly. Never mind, I’ll make you a part of..., well,
maybe even... Perhaps you can sit in front of me on the comodino, like a mannequin. You
don’t look much like a mannequin. What do you look like? I’m not sure. You’re so delicate
and soft and obedient, like a cat. No, you’re not soft – no yet. But you will be. (Samar Yazbek
2008: 75; 2012: 666).
In this novel, written in the third person, the author does not identify with the
main characters. In a word, Yazbek does talk about homosexuality, but with a language that fits into the heteronormative canon, setting into the scene a relation between a very beautiful black woman and her mistress, therefore following an
used/abused cliché (the servant does not do it for herself or because of her sexual
orientation; she is driven to the lesbian relation by her mistress). ‘Aliy! takes revenge having sex with her husband, and the novel can only end with a separation
and an allusion to ‘Aliy! going back home. In the background, the relation between
+an!n and ‘Aliy! is only an excuse for once more telling us the stories of two
women. They are tragic stories, of course, which, even if we can be sympathetic
with the characters, are written within a heteronormative cliché.
If it is true, that visibility has improved in recent years – there have been novels,
as already mentioned, but also theatre plays, broadcast debates, and newspaper articles on this topic – not always has this word been performative. Cinnamon is a
mainstream novel, i.e. it inserts itself in a discourse near to power because it shows
us +an!n – the Westernized bourgeois (presented as) a perverted woman, the
“bored woman” and ‘Aliy!, who at the end of the novel returns home to her exploited life. There is no real relation between the two characters and no hope for a
possibility of empowerment.
Similar to Cinnamon, Mal$mi# (Outlines, but also Points of view) by Zaynab
+ifn" presents the story of .urayy!, a Saudi woman, married to a man who forces
her to have sexual relationships with other men in order to increase their income
and their social status. The novel consists of five parts, all written in the first per-
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Jolanda Guardi
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son. The first one is the account of .urayy! herself and opens with a quote from
Jean Jacques Rousseau:
I will present myself, whenever the last trumpet shall sound, before the Sovereign Judge, with
this book in my hand and loudly proclaim, “Thus I have acted; these were my thoughts; such
was I. With equal freedom and veracity I have related what was laudable or wicked, I have
concealed no crimes, added no virtues; and if I have sometimes introduced superfluous ornament, it was merely to occupy a void occasioned by defect of memory: I may have supposed
that certain, which I only knew to be probable, but have never asserted as truth, a conscious
falsehood. Such as I was, I have declared myself; sometimes vile and despicable, at others,
virtuous, generous, and sublime” and if I have sometimes introduced superfluous ornament, it
was merely to occupy a void occasioned by defect of memory: I may have supposed that certain, which I only knew to be probable, but have never asserted as truth, a conscious falsehood. Such as I was, I have declared myself; sometimes vile and despicable, at others, virtuous, generous, and sublime (Jean-Jacques Rousseau 2012: 3; Zaynab +ifn" 2006: 5)
The second part narrates the plot from the point of view of +usayn, the man,
and opens with a quote of Voltaire taken from his Philosofical Dictionary about
tolerance: “What is tolerance? It is a consequence of humanity. We are all formed
by frailty and error: let us pardon reciprocally each other’s fally – that’s the first
law of nature” (Voltaire 1924, sub voce; Zaynab +ifn" 2006: 57). These two parts
describe the life of the couple until their divorce, and – through the quotes – seem
to ascribe to nature to .urayy!, and culture to +usayn, thus following a patriarchal
cliché. They depict life in Saudi Arabia, the author’s homeland, as strictly depending on sex prohibitions, where the relationship between woman and man has no
other destiny but failure. Part three opens with an excerpt taken from Rimbaud’s
Après le deluge (After the Flood): “–Well up, pond, – Foam, roll on the bridge and
above the woods; – black cloths and organs, – lightning and thunder, – rise and
roll; – Waters and sorrows, rise and revive the Floods” (Rimbaud 2012: 8; Z. +ifn"
2006:101), and, always in the first person, tells us the story of .urayy! after
+usayn, as she lives her life alone and tries to find a place in society.
At a first reading it seems that this third part will be the one where the main
character finally finds herself, as Rimbaud’s quote also suggests. In fact, apart from
the title and the subject of the poem – an invitation always to revolt although we
are not sure of success – the use of poetry reminds of Kristeva and her La révolution du langage poétique (Julia Kristeva 1974), where poetic language is “the recovery of the maternal body within the terms of language, one that has the potential
to disrupt, subvert, and displace the paternal law” (Judith Butler 1990: 108).
After her divorce, .urayy! becomes acquainted with other women thanks to her
new “job”: she sells them clothes made in Europe. Then she tells us: “I entered the
world of female homosexuals by chance” (Zaynab +ifn" 2006: 110. All translations
are mine). This chance is Laylà, one of her customers. Once, after work in the
shop, they drink tea together and Laylà tells .urayy! the reason why she is not
married: Apparently at first because she was waiting for love and then, after her father’s death, because she had inherited a lot of money and she doubted her pretenders’ sincerity. But then
I dared to ask her: Have you ever experienced love in your life?
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The question surprised her, I saw her lips tremble, her hands quiver, her breath rhythm
change, her chest rise and lower with her emotion, she laid her head on my breast and began
to cry. I cherished her cheek to comfort her, she hold me in her arms, her hands firmly on my
shoulders. Her palms became hot and she began to kiss me slowly on my face, I moved her
away and wiped the tears from her face. That night, as I lay in my bed, I recalled the details of
what had happened, and found myself trembling. (Zaynab +ifn" 2006: 112).
“Entering” the world of female homosexuals means to .urayy! simply that she
now can tell the reader a lot of stories about the reason why women have sexual
and love relationships with other women. As one of the women says, “This was
what made her turn to the world of homosexuals – she said laughing: women understand each other better” (Zaynab +ifn" 2006: 114).
Part four opens with following words:
I was used to hear the expression “Hind loves women”, or as they say in the West,
“lesbians”, with a negative tone, in different occasions, at a party or during a visit.
At the beginning I got angry, my eyes filled with tears, I thought leaving the place,
and then, with time, my lips turned into a smile, as I recalled the touch of my actual
lover or the details of the relation with a past one (Zaynab +ifn" 2006: 127).
This is the point of view of Hind, the one who will really love .urayy!, and
who is conscious of her sexual orientation. In fact, this part opens with a verse taken from “Tea at the Palaz of Hoon” by Wallace Stevens: “I was the world in which
I walked, and what I saw/or heard or felt came not but from myself” (Wallace Stevens 200: 34). This is the only section of the novel – a very short one indeed, seven
pages of the total one hundred and sixty – where a real lesbian character is present
who, as .urayy! does not love her, will confront a sad deception.4
Mal$mi# was received very badly in Saudi Arabia, where it underwent censorship, but it also had no really good reviews in the West, and it remains untranslated until today. Once again, the novel tells us the story of a woman, a sad
one, and homosexuality is portrayed as an alternative to the violence of a male
world and especially to the hypocrisy of the Saudi society, except in the case of
Hind. The latter is indeed a performative character in the novel structure, but has to
face disappointment, as a lesbian relation cannot “be” in a society, which founds
itself on a binary basis. In fact, it seems that .urayy! remains at the edges of her
society, because she does not choose a lesbian relationship and can imagine the life
of a woman only beside a man, as she repeatedly stresses throughout the text. This
novel, as the other by the same author, addresses female homosexuality as the only
one way in which women can respond to heteropatriarchal discourse. This is the
reason why, in my opinion, on the one hand Mal$mi#, although representing a step
further in relation to Cinnamon, does not achieve the expression of a homosexual
character as performative. On the other hand, contrary to what some scholars have
stressed (Soraya Altorki 2010), it is a well-structured novel, whose meaning is
broader than a simple anthropological experiment and has literary value.
4
The character will attempt suicide and the chapter ends with Hind asking herself at times what is
!uriy! doing. Part four narrates the story of !urayy!’s son, who joins a fundamentalist cell and perishes in Afghanistan; part five describes the life of the protagonist after the death of her son until her
death.
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A very different approach is the one of Al-/0ar'na (The Others) by ,ib! al+ariz, also from Saudi Arabia5. This novel too aroused great debate among scholars and reviewers in the Arab world. In view of the reaction in her country, the author uses a pen name in order not be condemned, as happened to Zaynab +ifn". 6
The novel structure is threefold: in part one, which opens with a quote by Jean-Paul
Sartre (L’enfer c’est les autres, translated as: Hell is other people), the reader is literally thrown into the intimate stream of consciousness of the main character,
whose name he will never know, and of her having a sexual experience with D!y, a
female fellow student:
I hung onto the mirror, my flagrant nakedness sending me into a state of rapture I had never
experienced before, a feeling of bliss at seeing myself desired like this, and escaping the laws
mandated by my own body (,iba al-+ariz 2006: 8: Siba al-Harez 2009: 81).
This section is a long interior monologue, which not only describes the attitude
of the female protagonist towards what happens to her, but also presents a detailed
description of Saudi society, especially of the Shiite community where the heroine
comes from. In a close community like that of the village she lives in, the first reaction to her experience can only be repulsion:
My filthiness is not the kind I can wash away with soap and water. I am tired of repeatedly
washing my hands and my mouth, tired of bathing so often, tired of the fear I cannot help
feeling every time I sleep on my back or part my legs. After all, of this has happened, I cannot
wipe an enormous eraser across my body and mind to bring back the whiteness of their surface, the whiteness of the page. Dai sliced me into two parts: my body, glorying in its confections, and my self, so determined on purification from its offences (,ib! al-+ariz 2006: 12;
,ib! al-Harez 2009: 120).
In the novel, it appears clear how Saudi society is a male one, where the male
has the power and which has no mercy for those trying to walk another path. The
female protagonist undergoes a new perception of her body, “in a state of estrangement from myself, while my body began to truly harass me with its demands” (,ib! al-+ariz 2006: 18; ,ib! al-Harez 2009: 233). In any case the relationship with D!y is one of possession too, which reproduces the male norm and the
heroine is only an object in her lover’s hands.
At the year’s end, she gave me my diploma signed off with her professional moniker. My diploma was a sentence she wrote in black ink onto my body. You are a possession of mine and
of mine alone (,ib! al-+ariz 2006: 46; ,ib! al-Harez 2009: 694).
The relationship between D!y and the heroine continues, threatened always by
the power the former tries to have over the other, and a sort of violence D!y is
somehow pleased to bestow. In the background, we learn that the heroine suffers
from epilepsy, clear expression of her un-wellbeing in the society she lives in, and
5
The novel’s title comes from The Others (2001), a movie by Alejandro Amenábar, featuring Nicole
Kidman and inspired by Henry James novel The Turn of the Screw (1898).
6
The English translator too did not want to be mentioned in the English translation of the novel. In
fact, it says: “The name of the translator is not listed here at the translator’s request” ("ib! al-Harez
2009, colophon). The novel has been published in Italian too, translated by Lorenzo Declich and Daniele Mascitelli ("ib! al-Harez 2009). In any case, the question of self-censorship has to be studied,
because it is not sure whether the reason is the presence of a homosexual character. It could rather be
the critical approach towards Saudi society in general.
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that she had a brother she really loved, who died. At some point D!y introduces the
heroine to her girlfriends, among them D!r"n: “The best way I can put it is that the
flesh of her hand had gone deep inside of me and flung everything there into disarray” (,ib! al-Harez 2009: 1761). The encounter marks the beginning of part two,
whose quote is taken from the movie The Others: “No door should be opened before the previous one has been closed” (,ib! al-+ariz 2006: 161; ,ib! al-Harez
2009: 2293).
The relationship with D!r"n evolves in a very different way and the heroine fails
to be someway born again with her:
With Dareen, I felt I had enough reassurance to set my heart down next to us on the table,
without having to fear that she would steal it if I stopped paying attention to it, or to her. Not
because she could not steal it, not because she did not want to steal it, but because she had
understood instinctively from the very beginning how badly I was a losing mare in this race,
and so she spared me a lot of hardship by placing no bets on me.
With Dareen, I began to discover my body as if it were something new. She would lure me
slowly, lighting two candles and whispering scandalous things that made my skin tremble to
hear them. She stayed neutral when there were wars between me and my body, even though I
sought to embroil her in those conflicts between us. That parts of my body had their names,
one by one, even the most secret; our moments had their private and special expressions; and
what I would have believed was a cheap expression unbefitting to Dareen and her immense
daintiness turned out, I discovered, to provide a kind of grimy tonic. Who said that mire does
not touch or arouse you? Our physical relationship was sex, and not what I was used to calling
it, allusively and euphemistically: that (,ib! al-+ariz 2006: 178; ,ib! al-Harez 2009: 2581).
The guilt feeling too seems to fade to leave room for discussion: if God created
us like this why should we feel dirty? A fundamental question, to which the novel
unfortunately gives no answer.
Growing up – the novel begins with the heroine not even eighteen and ends
when she is twenty-two – the protagonist learns better how to manage relationships; so The Others, once again, can be read as the story of an education path from
oppression if not to emancipation (because impossible in the Saudi society) at least
to self consciousness. This part of the book then presents the relationships the protagonist has with women in general and with two of them in particular; the latter
are not love affairs but sex relationships showing an evolution from desperation to
awareness. The awareness of her sexuality makes the heroine remark that she has
never known a man, or better, she has never felt nor imagined the desire for a man:
When I said to Dareen, What I long for in you is a man, but it’s a man who will never show
up, she whispered into my ear, I wish I could be that man.
But I do not expect anyone, I answered with truly lofty hauter.
Without knowing it, she drew my attention to the entity missing in my life. There had never
been a man, never at all. In my remotest hopes, in my very feeblest and most secret thoughts
about the future, there never ever had been a man (,ib! al-+ariz 2006: 216; ,ib! al-Harez
2009: 3204).
She then tries to have a relationship with Rayy!n, but this, although described
with a beginning a culmination and an end, remains a virtual one, as they know
each other only through the Internet and through long telephone calls. In any case,
the female protagonist begins to turn to the world of men, and in this part, the fact
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that she “is” not a homosexual is underlined more than once. In the last chapter of
part two, the girl talks with ‘Umar, another longtime friend, and tells him everything about her sexual experiences until that day.
At this point, there is a caesura in the novel stressed by a quote taken from
Samuel Becketts’ Waiting for Godot: “Nobody comes, nothing happens”. From this
point on, part three begins and the novel turns to the men’s world and their relation
with the heroine.
In fact we are informed that she goes once more to D!y to see her for the last
time and to “close the door” to homosexual life in order to open a new one, that of
the world of men, even though the reader remains uncertain about the reason why
she does it. The last chapter shows us the young woman with ‘Umar, the net friend
she has had since the beginning of the novel7, and whom she finally decides to
meet. When she meets him the word that more often recurs is “real”, as what she
experienced before him was not:
Take me, Umar. Take all of me!
And he did. Not as Dai did in all of our scrabbles in bed, nor in the state of lightness I had
gone through with Dareen, nor in the fear and shame I had felt having a strong and forceful
heel pressing down on my body for years. Now and then, out of an extreme of desire or love, I
would be on the point of saying, Don’t stay outside of me! Don’t steal your children from me!
But I held back, afraid that such big words would frighten him (,ib! al-+ariz 2006: 284; ,ib!
al-Harez 2009: 4307).
There is no happy end here, only the promise not to let her down (,ib! al-+ariz
2006: 287). And to be real, in contrast to the “others”, as well as also the reference
to the movie, reminds the reader (where the “others” are ghosts). It seems that the
author warns the reader: Everybody I described throughout the book were ghosts,
only man is reality. Despite this reading, Al-$%ar"na is a very well written and
structured novel, which should deserve more attention by scholars.
Looking at the three novels together, there are some common features that can
be identified, following Sedgwick’s idea of a binary heteronormative system.
Sedgwick says that Western8 culture is organized around the binary idea of homosexual/heterosexual. This idea has influenced and determined all other binary couples at the base of epistemological and power relations through which we have access to knowledge. Among them, feminine/masculine, truth/paranoia,
health/illness, natural/unnatural (Sedgwick 1990). The power discourse, through
other related discourses such as law, medicine and literature, makes our perception
of the world possible only through this binary system, and therefore we can perceive sex only as heteronormative (woman/man), and can read reality only through
a sexual lens. If a deconstruction through these novels is ongoing, this should mean
breaking these binary couples, and queering the “malestream” canon, because “the
binary system is heteronormative, thus queer theory avoids binary and hierarchical
reasoning in general and in connection with sex and gender in particular” (Mimi
Marinucci 2010: 50).
7
The name of the boy, ‘Umar, reminds the reader that he is a sunn", that is, not a Shiite as the heroine.
8
I consider Arab culture as Western.
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All the novels discussed here rely on a binary structure, which sees an opposition much or less emphasized between heterosexuality and homosexuality. Although all the main characters have a homosexual relationships – and it is even
more difficult to discern if it is a love relationship or just a sexual one – in the end
they all return to the “man”. This occurs to ‘Aliy!, who returns to her family home
where she will find the ghost of her father, the one who sold her; to .urayy!, who
in reality never left the patriarchal structure, and to the heroine of The Others,
whose story ends with the sexual relation with a young man under the quote that
opens the third part of the novel: “Nobody comes, nothing happens”, to stress that
all she experienced before has not changed the performative character of gender
relations. Another binary couple is the one represented by the opposition between
urban and provincial life. In this case too, we can notice this opposition in all the
novels above mentioned: Cinnamon reproduces an opposition between a country
girl and her bourgeois mistress, whose life is rooted in an urban milieu; Mal$mi#
offers a description of the contrast of two cities, Jeddah and Riyad, opposed to the
West (London); the background to The Others is the village of al-Qaif, from where
the heroine comes, opposed to Riyad. In all the novels it is also possible to find another opposition, the one between a girl or young woman and an older woman, as
for example +an!n to ‘Aliy!, .urayy! to the other women in Riyyad, the heroine
of The Others to her mother. This means that the novels’ structure does not challenge the heteropatriarchal norm and that therefore the presence of a female homosexual character is only functional to reproduce the male structure of society.
The novel that represents the act of saying one’s own homosexuality perhaps
for the first time in the Arabic language is Ana hiya anti (I am you, in the feminine
gender) by the Lebanese author Ilh!m Man-'r. Sih!m, the heroine, has been attracted to women since her youth and lives her first sexual experience with a fellow
student, Claire, as she studies in Paris. It is again in Paris that she falls in love with
Lay!l, her degree supervisor. She develops a sort of obsession for the teacher, and
this inevitably shines through the Sapphic poems she writes and Lay!l revises.
Lay!l is the love object of M"m" too, a married woman who lives in the same building and who no longer finds pleasure in the relationship with her husband. That
marks the difference with the aforementioned novels, since here one perceives a
change in the narrative proposal being all the text centred on the relationships that
protagonists interweave with each other. They are not uncertain about their sexual
orientation – even though Sih!m, for example, accepts it with some difficulty, and
we can read the novel too as her journey to self-recognition – nor are they obliged
to carry out the homosexual act for some reasons nor do they feel guilty. The focus
is rather on living one’s own sexuality peacefully and openly in a society, i.e., the
Arab one, which condemns it.
Sih!m succeeds in overcoming the clash between the desire to be who she is
and the rules bound to gender and class in Lebanese society. She succeeds in expressing herself in what Samar +ab"b, who deeply studied the novel, calls a lesbian
discourse (Samar Habib 2007); although still at an embryonic stage, it is expressed
in a deeply different way than in Cinnamon or Al-$%ar"na, as for example:
Nothing arouses me except the female form, for the female body has a great effect on me and
it is what awakens desire within me. What am I guilty of exactly if I can only feel the pleasure
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of love with a woman? It’s love, and the purpose of making love is attaining pleasure and satisfaction (Ilh!m Man-'r 2000: 170. All translations by Samar Habib).
The self-consciousness about the concept that saying is existing is fully present
in the novel. Sih!m seeks reasons for her homosexuality but in the end she comes
together with herself because nothing has to be justified and:
As for us here [homosexuality] is muffled because we are still in the magical pattern of
thought. We think that being silent about a reality of some sort enables us to eliminate it. Yes,
eliminate it from our thoughts, so that it nests in our bodies and our subconscious and that it
reflects itself throughout all our behaviour without our knowledge (Ilh!m Man-'r 2000: 5960. Italics are mine).
The background of the novel is, in this case too, the relation among classes.
Sih!m comes from a bourgeois family, well-described in the relationship she entertains with her mother and in the relation/opposition with the West represented by
Claire, the French friend. The opposition between the way Claire and Sih!m live
their homosexuality is exemplified by Sih!m calling Arab society the City of Mint,
and the French society the City of Saffron.9 The City of Mint’s women go out at
night seeking for a bridge to pass to the other side. But in vain.
The overcoming of this symbolic bridge is represented in the novel by the relationship between Claire and Sih!m. Claire embodies the possibility of overcoming
the constriction of the Arab society as she guides Sih!m where the borderline between the active and the passive element and the female/male role in the lesbian
experience are obsolete.
Claire unveils the treasures of her body and the sun intermixes with the waves and the berries
emerge deliciously and it’s time to eat, Claire devours passion and finds pleasure, she knows
the secrets of love and its ways and she flirts, Claire and freedom is in her dress, she undresses, she does not want to remain a prisoner, and she blows her cigarettes in a blonde cup, so
who is Claire drinking and who is drinking her? (Ilh!m Man-'r 2000: 73).
Building relationships, articulating them, setting bridges is what undermines the
norm. It is a new kind of methodology, the methodology of the oppressed which,
intersecting questions of gender and class, enables a different consciousness. This
involves not only the creation and the analysis of texts, but also the creation of a
social movement. In this way, the unspeakable can be said – and therefore it creates
reality – through and against power. In this novel, although some of the patriarchal
binary structure is present (for example in the relationship between Si&!m and her
mother, in the role played by war, and in the description of a provincial society as
opposed to the urban Paris), we can detect a new approach in the way the main
character feels and most of all acts in relation to her homosexuality.
In conclusion, in modern and contemporary times the shift has been from citing
the homosexual character as functional to a literary strategy relating to the sexual
act as a symbol for something else (usually in the negative) to the outing of the
heroine/hero’s sexual orientation. If the first method of treating homosexuality in
literature never aroused critics or censure, the second one had as a result a negative
attitude among scholars, who refused to assign literary value to those novels.
9
Saffron is here the allusion to the fact that in Arabic lesbians are named sa!!aqa, from a verb which
means “to rub” used to denote the act of “rubbing” saffron between the hand palms to separate it.
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The reception of these novels in the Arab world as in the West, in fact, should
be the object of further research in order to investigate in which way they can redefine the literary canon both in the Arab countries and in the works of scholars who
make research about Arab literature.
This roughly outlined path seems to be of great interest. The presence of female
homosexuality in literature as presented in this paper invites us as scholars not to
make the mistake of defining “Arab woman” or “Arab lesbian” as a thing in itself,
but to try to reveal its relations to other things or people. Doing so we can disclose
the structure by which the language of supremacy is said, and deconstructing it, let
a new one be uttered, therefore being useful to articulate anew the literary discourse not only referring to Arabic literature but also to literature in a broader
sense.
References
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30
Dangerous Liaisons
The Exceptional Gay Palestinian in Human Rights Documentaries
by
Joseph S. Valle*
Abstract: The ongoing Palestinian-Israeli struggle is provocative creative fodder for independent media makers who attempt to unravel the myriad political and cultural battles within
Palestine. Within the same year as the configuration of the wall, World Pride 2006, an international event organized by Interpride, one of the oldest US-based organizations promoting
gay and lesbian global solidarity, was held in Jerusalem. The controversial nature of this event
created a mini-movement of documentaries shot in Israel and the Palestinian Occupied Territories between 2006-2009 that dealt with self-identified gay Palestinians. How do nonPalestinian media artists capture the stated complexities of sexual identities within such a contested physical space? What happens when non-Palestinians create media that privileges their
own political agendas over the agendas of their participants whom they supposedly speak for?
How are the media maker’s subjective bias visually constructed through visual style and documentary submode? I will textually analyze the documentary, City of Borders (Yuh Suh
2009), and argue the documentary visually illustrates frustrating conundrums by advancing
Western perceptions of the gay rights agenda in Israel and Palestine over the social, economic, and legal injustices that all Palestinians encounter in their lives.
Introduction
The ongoing Palestinian-Israeli struggle is provocative creative fodder for independent media makers to investigate the myriad political and cultural battles within
Palestine. Under their lens, Palestine is often explored by documenting the IsraeliWest Bank Barrier that has been under construction since 2006. It is ironic that in
the same year as the configuration of the wall, World Pride 2006, an international
event organized by Interpride, one of the oldest US-based organizations promoting
gay and lesbian global solidarity, was held in Jerusalem. World Pride 2006 garnered protests from conservative Jews, Christians, and Muslims due to religious
*
Joseph S. Valle is a PH.D student in the Mass Communication and Media Arts program at Southern
Illinois University Carbondale. His research interests include Palestinian Cinema, Hindi Cinema,
Documentary Studies, Race in US Cinema, and Queer [email protected]
© DEP
ISSN 1824 - 4483
Joseph S. Valle
DEP n. 25 / 2014
reasons, as well as human rights organizations against Israel’s governmental policies such as the development of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, such as New
York based No Pride Without Palestinians. The controversial nature of this event
piqued the curiosity of several media makers interested in its unique religious and
sexual politics, and created a mini-movement of documentaries shot in Israel and
the Palestinian Occupied Territories.
How do these non-Palestinian media artists capture the stated complexities of
sexual identities within such a contested physical space? What happens when nonPalestinians create media that privileges their own political agendas over the agendas of the people whom they supposedly speak for? How are the media maker’s
subjective bias visually constructed through style and the performative documentary submode? To further engage with these questions, I will closely examine the
documentary, City of Borders (Yuh Suh 2009) which has come out of the minimovement described above.
City of Borders, like other Western-produced independent documentaries on
this topic, focuses on self-identified gay Palestinians who grapple with their sexual,
racial, and national identities under the shadow of the elephantine Israeli-West
Bank wall that Palestinian national activists consider a symbol of apartheid. The
Israeli rationale for the wall, shared by many Westerners, is that it exists to protect
their country from the threat of Palestinian attacks on civilians, which have increased since the Second Intifada (The Palestinian uprising) in 2000. Further complicating matters, the wall creates isolated ghettos in the West Bank, disempowering Palestinians within the region and rupturing any potential of an autonomous
Palestinian nation-state. With regard to this politically unstable society, how can
gays and lesbians negotiate their sexual identities when their lives are so engulfed
by national violence and war? I argue City of Borders visually illustrates this frustrating conundrum by advancing Western perceptions of the gay rights agenda in
Israel and Palestine over the social, economic, and legal injustices that all Palestinians encounter in their lives. Despite the participation from Palestinian subjects
whose blatant marginalized status in Israel problematizes the concept of an allinclusive gay sexuality, City of Borders attempts to construct a global, universal,
borderless, GLBTQ community, and marginalizes groups, communities, cultures,
or nations that do not accept Western concepts of sexuality.
I will create a close film analysis of City of Borders that reveals how sexual
identities are constructed visually and sonically by the media maker, as well as by
the self-reflexive performativity of one of the main Palestinian participants, Boody.
I am interested in the intersections of Boody’s mediated socially-constructed identities, and how they simultaneously marginalize and empower him. Boody’s performativity undermines the central argument of the documentary, because through
his performance (or non-performance) of gender, sexuality, and nationality, he contradicts essentialist claims of innate identities. The complex political context of
Boody’s life and identity is obvious, even though City of Borders treats his sexual
identity as paramount, in order to advocate for universal gay and lesbians rights.
The documentary’s scope is even more slippery when considering Boody’s natural
charisma and charm, which makes it even more difficult for the audience to negoti-
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ate with their feelings of empathy for the participant marginalized through documentary’s paternalistic rhetoric.
Defining Performativity in Documentaries
In the past twenty years, there has been a significant amount of scholarship
written about the so-called “performative” documentary submode. People unfamiliar with documentary theory usually presume, that performance and documentary
might not exactly be contradictory, but they cannot work in conjunction with each
other, because a performance supposedly dismantles the feeling of “realness” a
documentary generates. Film scholar, Stella Bruzzi defines the performative documentary as:
[…] Built around the intrusive presence of the filmmaker or self-conscious performances by
its subjects – is the enactment of the notion that the documentary only comes into being as it
is performed, that although the factual basis (or document) can pre date any recording or representation of it, only the film itself is necessarily performative because it is given meaning by
the interaction between performance and reality (Bruzzi 2006: 186).
Bruzzi’s insightful definition of the documentary submode is crucial in understanding how a performance represents actuality. The documentary performance
stylistically reveals the negotiation between the camera, participant, and media
maker by purposely alerting the viewer about the media maker’s creative process.
The performative documentary critically acknowledges the presence of the camera,
and a new actuality emerges out of the self-reflexive production. Cameras usually
make people feel self-conscious due to the fear of being unfairly represented or exploited. However, in the performative documentary there is more freedom and encouragement for the participant to perform and acknowledge the camera’s presence, or the documentarian is self-reflexively performing the role of the documentarian for the camera. Film and Television scholar, Brenda Smaill posits:
It would be naïve to read these performances as unmediated presentations of a self that are not
subordinated to the filmmaker’s vision. Yet to simply understand these representations of subjectivity as outcomes of the documentary process is to ignore how this process can function as
a site of dialogue between film-maker and filmed. While the finished documentary is ultimately out of the hands of those depicted, the performance indicates a negotiation between
the capacity for the subject to speak and the context in which speech is enabled (Smaill 2006:
20).
The relationship between the media maker and the participant is in a state of
constant flux during production, and in the performative documentary it is usually
explored in great detail in order to reveal the power negotiations between the media
maker and the participant. This documented relationship is a clever narrative device that implies how the participant has at some agency in the creative process,
even though the media maker is the primary architect who constructs the documentary. The most notable methods of visually representing this relationship are: the
physical presence of the media maker in the documentary who engages with the
participants within the frame, using the voice of the media maker to ask a question,
even though the media maker is not in the frame, or a participant directly engaging
with the camera.
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The Construction of a Gay Eden
City of Borders follows the lives of several self-identified gay and lesbian Israelis and Palestinians who frequent the only gay bar in Jerusalem, called the Shushan.
This club is a safe haven for them to openly socialize, flirt, dance, and exhibit their
same-sex desires without the risk of public ridicule and violence in the conservative holy city. The documentary constructs Shushan as a space where national and
religious identities are overpowered by sexual desire, because Palestinians, Israelis,
Jews, Christians, and Muslims co-exist peacefully within it.
The Shushan exists as a symbol of peace, and its Palestinian and Israeli customers enthusiastically praise it in vox populi evening street interviews about how
transformative it is to have a queer-friendly Israeli-Palestinian space in Jerusalem,
because it is the first chance they ever had to confront the “enemy” in a desegregated social environment. However, what happens when the lights go on and everyone leaves? Is it possible to form solidarity with the enemy, and eventually work
towards social change outside of this safe haven, or is the documentary manufacturing an idealistic construction?
Mas’ud Zavarzadeh in his analysis of the political intentions of media work
states, “…A filmic space is the site of the warring forces in culture between what
social reality is under present ideological and economic practices and what it could
become” (Zavarzadeh 1991: 23). His adroit observation is deceptively obvious;
nevertheless it is important to consider, what is the function of documentary representation? Do media makers construct social worlds that they wish were actualites,
or are these idealistic spaces within society’s grasp? Do they really believe in documented actuality, or are they conscious of its construction? I want to believe that
desire overpowers history, race, ethnicity, religion, and unequal power relations,
but when contemplating the marginalization Palestinian population due to their
statelessness and occupied status in Israel and the Palestinian Territories it makes
the representation of the Shushan problematic, because sexual desire cannot transcend social injustices.
Yuh Suh, the director of City of Borders states, “Israelis and Palestinians and
people from clashing worlds share a common need for belonging and acceptance”
(“Queer Film Fest Preview City of Borders” www.xtra.ca). Suh is very clear about
her motivation, even though it is important to remember there might be a discrepancy between what an artist conceives, and how it is received by an audience. I do
not want to conflate my own hesitation of embracing the Shushan by speaking for
the “viewer”, but I am compelled to ask how Palestinians equally belong to a
community where they do not have the same equal rights and privileges as Israelis?
What are the creator’s intentions and what is she leaving out of the representation?
Fully grappling with these problems will involve a closer textual analysis, and an
engagement with the question about performativity that was posed at the beginning
of the chapter.
A prologue sets the tone of a work, and it is necessary to have an engaging hook
to lure the viewer into a mediated world. It creates a specific mood and establishes
how invested the audience will be in the piece. City of Borders opens with an es35
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tablishing hand-held shot in a moving vehicle on a highway that is parallel to the
Israeli-West Bank Wall. Within the same shot, the camera tracks the massive barrier that stretches outside of the periphery of vision. Text dissolves onto the moving
image, which identifies the setting as Ramallah, West Bank. A male voiceover out
of the frame narrates, “This wall is the wall between Palestine and Israel”. A cut is
made which identifies the speaker in a medium shot of a young man in his early
twenties who wears a choker with a large red heart charm in the center. He continues ominously, “This wall was put only to protect Jerusalem from us”. Text identifies the man as a Palestinian named Boody. A cut is then made to the rearview mirror where an ornament hangs of Yasser Arafat making a peace sign, and then another cut to a close-up of the same ornament.
Suh sets up the political stakes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the
words of her participant. Boody’s intonation reveals that he is personally offended
by the construction, and the first four shots of the documentary generate a sense of
danger, suspense, and disorientation via the shaky camera shots.
Boody is not allowed into Israel without a permit due to his nationality. However, in the dark of night, with several friends, he finds an opening in a wire fence,
and illegally crosses the border so they can go to the Shushan. If Boody gets caught
by Israeli soldiers without his papers, they will arrested him, but he remains steadfast in his pursuit of reaching Israel.
The next scene begins with an establishing shot of the back of Boody’s feet as
he walks in the dark. The camera pans up to his body, and transforms into an overthe-shoulder shot. Boody glances over his shoulder and says, “If they catch us. We
are going straight to the jail”. He then puts a piece of bubblegum his mouth. There
is a cut to a wide shot with Boody gesturing to his friends to follow him as he holds
one of his male friend’s hands, and then he shushes the people behind him. There is
another cut of Boody and his friends in a long shot, as he stops walking and hands
his friend his bag. He tells his friends, “You wait right here, and I’ll go check the
fence”. The camera tracks him as he disappears into the darkness. Afterwards there
is a point of view shot of barbed wire and a broken metal fence, and Boody says,
“It’s open. Come on”, in Arabic out of the frame. The camera follows him as he
dodges barbed wire with efficiency and grace. When he has almost reached Israel,
he pauses, turns around, and finally implicates the viewer on his journey, “This is
the place we go from, every time we go illegal to Israel. We are not going to do
bombs. We are not going to do anything wrong. We only go to have some fun, live
our life.” He cleverly understands that he is the future subject of a Western audience by addressing the viewer in English, and also establishes himself as not a “terrorist”.
Film theorist, Elizabeth Cowie believes, “The look back at the camera disturbs
the actuality shot by reversing the object of fascination from inside the scene to
outside” (Cowie 1999: 27). When a participant directly addresses the camera it
makes the audience conscious of the documentary construction, because we can no
longer passively observe a moving image due to its self-reflexive style, even
though the viewer obviously cannot respond back to him or her. However, the participant’s monologue creates a level of intimacy and engagement with the work
that is difficult to dismiss. Boody breaks the fourth wall, because he wants to reit36
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erate to the viewer that he is an innocent man, while simultaneously committing a
crime by illegally crossing the border. The audience metaphorically becomes an
accomplice on his illicit journey, and depending on their views about immigration,
or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he either becomes a criminal, a victim of the occupation and/or a hero by resisting it.
The next cut is a long shot of Boody climbing a wall with barbed wire in the
foreground. Boody asks in Arabic, “There are no soldiers, right?” Boody sits on top
of the wall, looks down, and hesitates. He turns around to face the camera, and
says, “No I can’t jump, no I can’t”. Boody then twists his body around, puts both
hands on the wall, and jumps down. There is a sound of Boody landing on the
ground and someone shushing everyone out of the frame. Text appears above the
wall that reads “City of Borders”. The final shot is of Boody once he is over the
wall. It is a long shot, and Boody says in English, “We have to check if there is police from here”, he looks in one direction, “or from here”, and then the other.
“There is nothing”. He then walks away from the camera and says in Arabic, “Let’s
go sweetheart”. To further complicate the construction of the prologue, and engage
with the concept of performativity, I want to share a quote from Boody, who participated in another documentary called Jerusalem is Proud to Present (Nitzan Gilday
2008) which was shot around the same time he was involved with City of Borders.
In Jerusalem is Proud to Present, Boody claims that whenever he visits the Shushan, he walks directly to the checkpoint that separates Ramallah from Israel, and
specifically tells the guards that his destination is the Shushan, and they give him
permission to cross the border without any issues. This confession contradicts the
suspenseful prologue to City of Borders. Making claims about truth and fiction, and
speculating about Boody’s real journey to the Shushan that was not shown or spoken about in either documentary is fruitless, what is more beguiling to consider is
the possibility that Suh created a narrative that might not be based on Boody’s specific actuality. If this were the case, Suh makes a noble gesture at visually constructing how West Bank Palestinians negotiate with their marginalized status of
being considered immigrants in Israel, especially if they are self-identified gays.
The prologue leads the audience to believe that Boody and his friends illegally
crossed the border to Israel, but they could be anywhere in Ramallah. Whether or
not they illegally crossed the border becomes almost irrelevant, because their performance of documented actuality situates them within their Palestinianness, and
alerts the audience how Palestinians endure and negotiate with the ongoing construction of the barrier. If Boody legitimately crossed the border illegally for the
sole purpose of the documentary, it not only displays his bravery, but also reveals
the self-reflexive presence of the media maker and her crew who become accomplices on his journey, because they put themselves at risk with him, even if they
will be less severely punished than the Palestinians for not following the legal procedure of border crossings.
The Double Lives of Boody aka Miss Haifa
So far this article has exclusively focused on the representation of Boody’s Palestinian identity and has not examined his sexual identity. One of the main reasons
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for this omission is because Boody does not speak about his gay identity until later
on in the documentary. With this in mind, it is important to consider why is Boody
escaping Ramallah, “to live his life”, in the prologue. What is he running away
from? How is the West Bank constructed in City of Borders?
Ramallah is introduced in an establishing exterior wide shot of rooftops with
several Palestinian flags blowing in the wind. There is a cut to a long shot of a
house, and then another cut to a long shot of Boody in his bedroom, on his knees
praying to Allah on a prayer rug. The camera tracks him as he stands up, and then
there is a cut to a medium high angle shot of Boody praying. There is a cut to
Boody praying on his knees from a side angle. Boody in voiceover, says in English, as the cameraman physically moves closer to him to create a close-up, “Prayer
cleans everything. If I’m praying, and I only think about praying, it cleans me from
inside”. Boody wipes his face with both hands and then looks down. He kisses the
Qur’an, and gently presses it against his forehead, and repeats the same action several times, while in voiceover he says, “God, never gave up on me. I’m sure about
that”. He holds the Qur’an to his heart, and there is a cut to a close-up of Boody
putting the Qur’an on his folded mat after he finishes praying.
The next scene begins with an establishing long shot of Boody outside his house
while a woman descends from the entranceway stairs. He turns around to the camera, smiles, and says, “That’s my mom”. His mother says, “Hi, everybody”, in English and then starts speaking Arabic to Boody. In a voiceover, Boody says, “My
Daddy is in America, since I was only eight-years-old. Him and my Mom are divorced now. They’re not together anymore”. Boody translates for his mother who
speaks Arabic as she goes inside the house, he motions the cameraman to follow
them and says, “She’s hungry and wants us to eat, all of us”. Boody, his mother,
and his younger brother (who is never specifically acknowledged in the documentary), are preparing dinner in an establishing long shot. Boody carries a large metal
plate and as he closes the window shade for privacy; in voiceover, he says, “I was
the oldest male. I had to be the one who’s responsible. I am always the boss of my
family”. There is a jump cut to Boody and his mother bringing pots of food to the
kitchen table. Boody’s voiceover, says, “At the start, I refused to be a gay”. The
camera focuses on the center of the table where Boody’s mother puts a covered
pot. Boody’s voiceover continues, “I was really scared that my brother and my sisters…”, there is a cut to Boody sitting down in his bedroom in a medium close-up
shot, composed as a talking head interview, and then his voiceover transforms in
sync with the moving image, “…were to do the same or think the same, so I refused to be a gay”. There is a cut to a close-up shot of Boody’s mother’s hands on
the pot on the table. She uncovers the pot, which reveals bulgur and peppers. The
camera then pans upward to a smiling Boody looking down at his dinner, while in
voiceover he says, “But then, I was thinking, ok, everyone is living their life, so I
have to live my life too”. There is another cut back to Boody’s interview. He says,
“I decided, yes I’m a gay, I’m going to live as a gay, and I don’t care”.
The next scene begins is an establishing close-up shot of Boody dancing and
lip-syncing to Arabic pop music in his bedroom. The camera zooms out to show
that Boody is dancing with two male friends. They shimmy their shoulders, and
shake their hips like belly dancers. The camera cuts to a medium close-up of one
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Boody’s friends while he sings along to the music. He puts his arms in the air, and
strikes an over the shoulder pose to the camera. The camera then pans left to
Boody’s other friend dancing, and then cuts to the close-up of Boody dancing. The
camera then cuts to a medium close-up of Boody’s friend, pans left to the other
friend who does one last hip shake as the song ends, and then pans right to Boody
who points to a poster on the wall of a young woman posing seductively with her
finger on her lips, who most likely sings the song.
There is a cut to another scene of a long shot of Boody’s mother sitting on a
chair in the living room, as Boody sits on its arm. Their physical closeness is not
only convenient to share the same frame for the interview, but also reveals the intimacy between them. They speak Arabic. Boody translates in English, “Ok, she’s
saying that I pray five times a day, and that she would never think that I’m gay, and
won’t believe it, and umm…” Boody’s mother interrupts him in English, “Not me
mamma, not me. You should not believe yourself that way”. She then starts speaking in Arabic. Boody translates for her, “Because, I believe in God, and I know
what’s right and what’s wrong”. There is cut to a medium close-up of Boody’s
mother chewing gum. There is a cut back to the long shot, and Boody’s mother
says in English, “My brother’s daughter, she wanna come tomorrow from America,
and I want Boody to marry her”. Boody looks exasperated and leaves the frame.
Suh creates several masterful juxtapositions that reveals how Boody leads two
separate lives, as if his gay and Palestinian identities are at war with each other.
Boody is torn between his traditional, gendered role as male head of the household,
and his independent gay identity. Boody seems at peace with being a gay Muslim,
but his mother sees these identities as complete contradictions. He cannot be a
good Muslim if he lives a gay lifestyle. However, it is important to acknowledge
that she is compassionate and accepting mother, because she can have a reasonable
dialogue with him about his sexual identity. When there is only silence about sexual desire, this is a form of repression. Verbally expressing and acknowledging the
existence of sex empowers humans, even though a discourse is taboo in many social situations in the public arena. If Boody’s mother attempted to truly repress her
son, she would not be negotiating with him about his sexual identity in a documentary. She disagrees with, but does not ignore his self-proclaimed sexual identity.
Granted, her reaction is far from ideal, but her resistance is relatively mild compared to other possible scenarios. She is not in complete denial about Boody’s sexual identity, even though she struggles to fully understand it.
However, what is visually represented in the documentary concerning Boody,
has little to do with his sexual identity. He speaks about being gay, but he does not
fully define what this identity means to him, even though he infers that it is a
choice. The contrast between Boody identifying himself as gay in an interview, as
his family prepares dinner in the B-roll footage, while in the next scene, he dances
and vogues with his friends for the camera, is troubling, as if his gender transgression (which he exhibits within his lip-sync performance) is automatically pegged to
his sexual desire and sexual identity. The parallel editing codes Boody as gay, because his gender performance is campy and self-reflexive. This performance might
be a substitute for not showing Boody’s sexual desire towards men (possibly because he was single at the time, or if he had a partner he might not have wanted to
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be involved with the documentary while Boody was in Israel and the West Bank,
but this is speculative). However, we need to remember that in the performative
documentary, or even the documentary mode in general, the participant is performing a version of their actuality. Boody might be exaggerating for the camera, but
there are so many moments throughout City of Borders where he refuses to abide
by rigid gender constructions (I have noted several examples throughout the analysis of the prologue, but the most pertinent example is his drag performance). I am
hesitant to easily conflate gender performance and sexual identity with each other,
but with Suh’s representation of Boody, there is admittedly much fluidity between
these social constructions.
Documentary film scholar Bill Nichols observes a strong connection between
gender and sexuality centered documentaries that challenge the social constructions
they explore, which is useful when grappling with the documented representation
of Boody:
The political dimension to documentaries on issues of gender and sexuality, or other topics,
joins an emphatically performative mode of documentary representation to the very issues of
personal experience and desire that lead outward, by implication, to broader issues of difference, equality, and non-discrimination” (Nichols 2001: 160).
Nichols recognizes that individual performances of gender and sexuality destabilize heterosexism and patriarchy. The performative documentary submode reveals the marginalization of groups that do not fit easily into societal norms, as
well as social and economic inequalities, and how the participants challenge such
oppression. If we follow Nichol’s notion of how an individual represents a group,
Boody not only represents himself, he also arguably stands for the social injustices
that all gay Palestinians encounter in their lives by revealing his struggles with
family, religion, culture, and nationality, which are not alien to viewers who juggle
multiple identities. Boody is a dream participant for any media maker who argues
for gay identity politics, because he goes through such extreme lengths to participate in “out” culture in Israel. He desires a lifestyle that does not exist in Ramallah,
that can only be found by crossing borders to Israel, which is why he is risks so
much for apparently so little. However, does “living his life” compensate for the
possibility of bodily harm or prison? According to Suh’s selection of such a compelling but extreme participant, it is.
Currently, I have analyzed Boody’s familial life in Ramallah and his social life
in Israel, but it is also extremely important to examine how Palestine is constructed
in City of Borders, because it visually provides us with a compelling index of
Boody’s desire to escape the West Bank.
The first moving image the audience sees of Ramallah outside of the prologue
and Boody’s household, is an establishing wide shot of men running on a dirt road
which parallels a concrete wall that separates the West Bank from Israel. There is a
cut to an insert shot of barbed wire, and then a cut to a wide shot of men throwing
bags over a fence, and then a cut to a long shot that slightly zooms in on a man
climbing. There is a jump cut to the same man on the other side of the border running away from the fence. The camera zooms in as he runs away. Suh does not
provide any other context about these people crossing the border. They only function as faceless images that evade Palestine as well as the camera.
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This is Suh’s constructed vision of Ramallah. She juxtaposes men running away
from Palestine with a city montage that depicts Ramallah as a chaotic space, heavily policed by masked soldiers who will never be implicated if a violent skirmish
occurs, and political imagery such as Palestinian flags and pictures of Arafat plastered and blowing everywhere. She creates a mood that is full of danger and political intrigue where violence can occur at any moment, which can easily generate
fear in the audience. The politically volatile shots contrast with people who live
their lives as if they were numb to the threat of violence.
The next scene begins with an establishing long shot of three women walking
on the sidewalk, and then the camera pans to Boody who was out of the frame. He
says, in voiceover, “A lot of my friends are afraid to be a gay in the streets, but I
don’t”. There is a cut to a long shot of men smoking hookah, and then a cut to a
medium close-up of Boody. He continues with his voiceover, “It is very ayb to be a
gay. Ayb means it’s very ashamed to be a gay”. Suh cuts back to the same soldiers
in the flatbed pickup truck that were featured in her Ramallah montage in a long
shot as they drive away from the camera.
There is no foregrounding of what it means to be a visible gay in the streets of
Ramallah. Earlier in the documentary, Suh equates gay men with drag and genderbending performances, via her juxtapositions and editing sequences, but Boody is
not dressed as Miss Haifa in this scene. He wears a black hooded sweater shirt and
jeans. Boody is without his friends, and he is not self-reflexively performing, or
even physically acknowledging the camera. There is no visible evidence in these
two shots that he is self-consciously performing his sexual identity. There is no dialogue in the moving image about his sexual identity; everything that he says is in
the voiceover. His words do not remotely match his actions in this scene, which
leads me to believe that Boody is visually and sonically constructed as having an
essential gay identity. This scene counters the fluid performativity of gender and
sexual identities in the earlier scenes, and renders Boody as powerless to a visually
frightening Ramallah that is depicted throughout the work.
In order to further construct a homophobic Palestine, Suh conducts vox populi
street interviews with four participants, and asks them, presumably since we never
hear her asking the question, how they feel about gays and lesbians. The scene begins with an establishing long shot of two young men sitting and smoking outside a
café. A female voiceover, says in Arabic, “Ramallah is very large and diverse”.
There is a cut to an outdoor fruit market that is shaded by numerous umbrellas. The
voiceover continues, “So it’s not strange for gays to be here”. There is a cut to a
medium close-up of the young woman. She says, “But I wish gays were not here.
They diminish the beauty of Ramallah”. There is a cut to a long shot of two older
women merchants, and then a cut of several men walking past a fruit vendor selling
apples. The next cut is a medium close-up of an older man who says, “We should
put them in jail. We should put them in jail. This is forbidden for us”. There is a cut
to a long shot of several young women, and then a cut to a long shot of a group of
young men conversing on the streets. After this B-roll, a cut is made to a medium
close-up of young woman who says in English, “It’s hard to see a gay here, and we
have to kick them…”, she punches the air, smiles, and says “We have to hate
them”. A cut is made to the last participant who is framed sitting down in a high
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angle medium close-up. He is an older man, and says in Arabic, “There are Islamic
laws against homosexual behavior. Islamic groups should not allow them to be together”. The final shot is of the same Hamas soldiers driving away in their truck.
Already City of Borders privileges “liberal and progressive” Israel over “conservative” Palestine, because if an easily identifiable Westernized queer space existed in Palestine, Boody would not be putting himself in such jeopardy. However,
Boody seems to be at greater risk, staying in Ramallah judging from the very homophobic comments from the interviewees. The audience roots for Boody to leave
Palestine so he can find his sexual liberation, and create the lifestyle he covets. He
fears for his life in Ramallah where we later learn that he is verbally harassed and
receives death threats for being gay. Boody is proud to be a Palestinian, but in the
documentary his sexual identity is paramount to the narrative.
Feminist scholar Jasbir Puar, in her critique of Western human rights groups,
states, “It is also imperative that these coalitional efforts reject queer missionary,
liberatory, or transcendent paradigms that might place Palestinian queers in a victim narrative parallel to that propagated by the Israeli state they are battling
against” (Puar 2007: 33). Puar problematizes the construction of queer Palestinians
as victims of a homophobic culture, because it fuels Israel into branding itself as
the only democracy that is tolerant of gays and lesbians in the Middle East. Selfidentified gay and lesbian Palestinians become double victims in these narratives
because they are occupied by Israel, and marginalized by Palestinians. However,
their gay identity is touted as more important than their stateless status, because
their sexual identity has more universal appeal to Western gay and lesbian human
rights groups.
The audience is introduced to a mediated Palestine that is apparently backward
and uncultured because it does not support a public Western gay lifestyle, and
Boody is constructed as a prisoner of a homophobic culture who has to overcome
his race, ethnicity, nationality, and religion in order to be free. He is also represented as an exceptional Palestinian who rises above his culture and religion by embracing a Western sexual identity. According to Middle Eastern Studies scholars,
Jin Haritawan, Tamisila Taugin, and Esra Erdem, “Individual Muslim women and
gays are described as having emancipated or liberated themselves from their repressive culture, by embracing, the gender-progressive culture of the ‘liberal
West’. Not only do they confirm the exceptionality of the West they also emerge as
exceptions to the rule that most women and gays ‘from this culture’ are in fact repressed” (83). It is vital to identify the hypocrisy of Western nation-states (and Israel) when they support heterosexist, racist, imperialistic, patriarchal power structures, while they accuse other nations of repressing women and gays and lesbians.
It is extremely problematic to position Europe, Israel, and especially the United
States, as examples of liberatory nation-states due to the level of governmental
suspicion and surveillance practices that have increased substantially since 9/11,
and since the Second Intifada in Israel. However, with the use of excessive violence, capital, and media supremacy these nation-states effectively position themselves as progressive democracies, while criticizing other nation-states that do not
live up to their ideologies.
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Joseph Massad argues, “The larger mission…is to liberate Arab and Muslim
‘gays and lesbians’ from the oppression under which they allegedly live by transforming them from practitioners of same-sex contact into subjects who identify as
homosexual and gay” (Massad 2001: 362). Massad believes that Muslims vehemently defend themselves against the universaliztion of sexual identities, because
the battle of identity politics is a way for the West to impose their beliefs onto different cultures. City of Borders does not explore the question of why its Palestinian
participants identify with gay and lesbian sexual identities. Despite the documentary’s intentions to construct the gay movement in Israel as all-inclusive, it is extremely segregated since only Israelis and Palestinians (or “Palestinian-Israelis” as
Israel refers to them) who legally reside in Israel have the privilege and physical
access to these queer spaces and events. The gay movement in Israel is arguably
inadequate for most Palestinians, because it is not aligned with their liberation; its
primary beneficiaries are the Israelis who want Jerusalem to become a more secular
and liberal society similar to Tel Aviv where the gay community is more established and tolerated.
To Suh’s credit, the power differences between Palestinians and Israelis are
greatly apparent throughout the documentary, but she undermines this progressiveness by not challenging the politics of the gay movement in Israel. City of Borders
attempts to normalize Western sexual identities in Arab culture by investigating the
lives of “out” Palestinians who accept these labels without confliction. People who
have same-sex desires that do not identify with these identities are noticeably absent in the work (maybe because they refuse to participate or are unaware of such
epistemology), because their inclusion would lead to layered complexities in Suh’s
political agenda. The documentary constructs gay and lesbian identities as innate
and predetermined, and refuses to see them as political identities. There is never
any discourse from the participants that counter these constructs, most likely because that would undermine Western queer activist media. It has been more than
sixty-five years since the formation of the State of Israel, and its citizens are still
fighting and defending their claim to Palestine. It is magical thinking to believe that
sexuality will consume all other identity constructions in such a politically charged
arena, and that these concepts are useful models for peace in the Middle East. City
of Borders works hard to universalize Western sexual identities, but it does not engage conceptually with how limiting and destructive these binaries are for Palestinians who also worry about occupation, exile, and displacement. In a globalized
world, Western labels cannot be ignored, but if one is strong and thoughtful enough
they can at least be challenged, deconstructed, and resisted.
References
Bruzzi, Stella. 2006. New Documentary 2nd Edition. London: Routledge.
Cowie, Elizabeth. 1999. “The Spectacle of Actuality” in Janes Gaines and Michael Renov, eds. Collecting Visible Evidence, pp. 19-45. Minneapolis: University
of Minnepolis Press.
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Haritawan, Jin with Tamisila Taugin and Esra Erdem. 2008. “Gay Imperialism:
Gender and Sexuality Discourse in the ‘War on Terror’” in Adi Kuntsman and Esperanza Miyake, eds. Out of Place: Interrogating Silences in Queerness/Raciality,
pp. 71-94. York: Raw Nerve Books.
Massad, Joseph. 2001. Desiring Arabs. Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press.
Nichols, Bill. 2001. Introduction to Documentary. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Puar, Jasbir K. 2007. Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times.
Durham: Duke University Press.
Xtra ca. 2009. “Queer Film Fest Preview City of Borders”. August 12. Accessed March 2014. http://dailyxtra.com/vancouver/arts-and-entertainment/queerfilm-fest-preview-city-borders.
Smaill, Belinda. 2010. The Documentary: Politics, Emotion, Culture. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
Zavarzadeh, Mas’ud. 1991. Seeing Films Politically. Albany: State University
of New York Press.
44
The LGBTQ question in Iranian cinema: A proxy discourse?
by
Anna Vanzan*
Abstract: The morality code that limits Iranian cinema does not hinder the local filmmakers’
attempt at portraying social, cultural, political issues in contrast to the values proposed by the
Islamic Republic. In spite of censorship, in the last three decades Iranian cinema has produced
a large number of films that are a (not so) veiled critique of the social-political arena. The
women’s issue, for example, is well represented by a variety of films known under the name
“filmha-ye zananeh” (women’s films); however, the female gender is not the only one to raise
the Iranian audience’s interest, at least by judging to the increasing number of films dealing
with gender identities produced in Iran (and by Iranian filmmakers in the diaspora) in recent
years. Even though the official narrative on the local LGBT community shifts from negation
to harsh punishment, its presence is vibrant and undeniable and increasing in cinema as well.
Besides, and paradoxically, the Islamic Republic’s moralistic stance and its forbidding any
possible contacts between the two sexes on the screen has encouraged a production of art
films in which cross-dressing and queer situations are normally staged as a substitution of
“normal” relations between men and women. The paper examines some of these ambiguities
and paradoxes related to gender in post Revolutionary Iranian cinema.
The morality code that limits Iranian cinema does not hinder local filmmakers’
attempts to portray social, cultural, political issues in contrast to the values proposed by the Islamic Republic (IRI). In spite of censorship, in the last three decades
Iranian cinema has produced a large number of films that are a (not so) veiled critique of the social-political arena. The women’s issue, for example, is well represented by a variety of films known under the name filmh!-ye zan!neh (women’s
films);1 however, the female gender is not the only one to raise the Iranian audience's interest, at least by judging from the increasing number of films dealing with
gender identities produced both in Iran and by the Iranian filmmakers of the diaspora in the last years. Even though the official narrative on the local LGBT community shifts from negation to harsh punishment, its presence is vibrant, undeniable and increasing in cinema as well. Besides, and paradoxically, the Islamic mor* Anna Vanzan is Assistant Professor of Arab Culture at the University of Milan, Italy and Visiting
Lecturer at M.I.M. Master at University ‘Ca’ Foscari’, Venice. italy. Her research focuses on Iranian
literature and culture, Iranian film, and Gender issues. [email protected]
1
The paper adopts a simplified transliteration from Persian and leaves names as they are commonly
known in Western sources (web, etc.)
© DEP
ISSN 1824 - 4483
Anna Vanzan
DEP n. 25 / 2014
alistic stance and its forbidding any possible contacts between the two sexes on the
screen have encouraged a production of art films in which cross-dressing and queer
situations are normally staged as a substitution of “normal” relations between men
and women. In this intricate setting, questions of gender and class intermingle thus
creating a rich and complex visual text whose multiple meanings are not always
clear to the Western audience.
The paper examines some of these ambiguities and paradoxes related to “other”
genders in post Revolutionary Iranian cinema.
The beginnings
Persian art in general has always been a site of ambiguity: since the very beginning, its highest expression, i.e., love poetry, has concealed the identity of the beloved thanks to the absence of grammatical gender in Persian. This grammatical
structure has provoked a great deal of word plays, but it has also allowed poets to
hide the real target of their lyrics. If many mystics (sufi) have addressed God as He
were an earthly lover, for sure many poets have also disguised their prohibited lovers (either a “he” or a “she”) thanks to Persian’s favorable grammatical features.
Protected by this ambiguity, poets have been able to express their longing for the
absent idol (Idol/male, idol/male, idol/female); their happiness for dancing with
Love (male/female companion); and they have been able to glorify the aspect of
beardless young men while claiming to describe divine perfect Beauty.
This peculiarity is confirmed, among other issues, by Persianate2 figurative arts,
especially those produced from the 16th to the late 19th century, when the aesthetic
standards required an overlapping of male and female characteristics, with the result that in some paintings it is difficult to distinguish men from women. Persian
miniatures represent people dressed in unisex clothes that do not reveal their owners’ sex and whose faces are characterized by attributes common to both men and
women, such as the shape of their eyes and mouth, the arched eyebrows crossing
on the lower part of the forehead and the same curls framing the visage. In addition, both men’s and women’s facial contours are often represented as covered by a
thin layer of hair.
The advent of photography and, soon after, of cinema compelled Iranian artists
to become more faithful to reality. However, more often than not, actresses would
represent not real characters but rather stereotypes, and women were confined to
play either sexy dolls or, vice versa, the roles or wicked witches.
However, the advent of the Islamic Revolution dashed everything away. The Islamic regime brought a wave of puritanism which, though it did not manage to
wipe out Iranian cinema, at least heavily hindered women’s presence from the
screen. Women virtually disappeared from the plots or could act only as devoted
mothers, sisters or daughters. Slowly, children arrived to replace the need to represent love between the two sexes, and male children, considered sexually innocent,
2
The term “Persianate” applies to forms of arts and culture matured not only in the geo-political
boundaries of past and contemporary Iran, but also in those societies deeply influenced by Persian
language and culture, such as those that flourished in the Indian sub-continent.
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were employed as substitutes to convey feelings considered prohibited, such as the
love between husband and wife. This is the case of Bashu, the Little Stranger, directed by Bahram Beizai in 1986, in which the little protagonist, Bashu, an orphan
who is hosted by Nai, a woman whose husband is temporarily away, acts as the
“gendered male” actor until the very end of the movie, when Nai’s husband returns
home.3 With the advent of Mohammad Khatami first to head the Ministry of Culture (1982-1992) and later the Presidency of the Republic (1997-2005), things
changed and the country experienced a period of relative freedom from cultural
censorship. Khatami himself was a film-lover and a staunch promoter of Iranian
cinema industry. Under his mandate a number of film directors dared to expose unspeakable social problems such as the abuse of drugs, prostitution, temporary marriage, divorce, social injustice and also mundane love, though of course avoiding
showing any direct contact between men and women.
Nevertheless, the more “real life” and sentiments found their way on the screen,
the more film directors felt the need to express different nuances of love, including
the forbidden ones, i.e., non-matrimonial love and even non-heterosexual love. The
obstacles were (and still are) almost insurmountable, as after the Revolution the authorities classified all the individuals who had real difficulty in conforming to heteronormative codes of gender as cases of sexual and moral perversion ( ! "#$% &'()*'
!"#$% enhar!f-e jens" va akhl!q"), and often render them subject to persecution
and/or criminalization. However, as from 1986, when the government first time
gave t permission to a trans to proceed with surgery, a new religious and official
discourse has been slowly emerging (Raha Bahreini 2008: 3). I am fully aware that
both this religious discourse and the consequent State policy on transsexuality are
highly contested, as they do not try to dismantle the present restrictive politics on
gender. According to the promoters of this critique, in fact, the Islamic Republic
continues to implement heteronormative moral codes and to confine nonheterosexual individuals to the arena of pathologies (!"#$%&' b"m!r!n) or disorders
(!"#$% ekhtal!l).4 What I am interested in examining here is the slow but constant
and conspicuous presence of issues related to “gender troubles” in Iranian cinema
and its possible interpretations. Does this phenomenon indicate that the New Iranian Cinema has become a site for contestation of the IRI and its repressive gender
politics? Does cinema reflect a debate on gender queerness that is possibly taking
place inside Iranian society? Or is this wave of “gender cinema” just a way of conquering the Western market and its insatiable hunger for “Oriental/Persian” erotic
fantasies?
The 2000s
The first Iranian films to stage gender queerness were produced in the year
2000. In an ideal trio, I place A girl named Tondar (Dokhtar i be n!m-e Tondar,
directed by Hamid Reza Ashtianpur); Daughters of the Sun (Dokhtar!n- e
3
Bashu is a clear sample of the “flexibility” of Iranian filmic text, as it can be read according to multiple keys of interpretation. See for example Rahimieh 2002.
4
Among the others, see M. Ali Abdi 2011.
47
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DEP n. 25 / 2014
khorsh"d, by Mariam Shahriar); and Baran (B!r!n, by Majid Majidi, 2001). The
first film is slightly different from the other two, as it is the story of a girl who
would like to be a man because of the greater freedom enjoyed by males. She acts
in a manly way, for example, by mischievously riding a cross motorbike, while she
daydreams about being an ancient heroine/hero who saves her tribe. However,
eventually, love for a man will resolve her presumed ambiguity. Though the film is
more a cry for woman's emancipation in line with the developments of Iranian society in a historical moment in which women were daily and successfully fighting
for their increasing visibility, it contains a cross-dressing component that cannot be
underestimated. Thanks to her almost constant male camouflage, the protagonist
can overcome the limits of modesty imposed by the strict censorship and exercise
the power of her direct gaze upon anyone, including men. However, Tondar barely
challenges the status quo; besides, there is no gender drama as everything is
(re)solved into the celebration of heterosexual love. Tondar acts comme un garçon
for a while, but she never contests the place and authority of the masculine position; rather, she emphasizes that, in the binary relation between the sexes, it is the
masculine one who has the real power. Therefore, the film does not challenge the
heteronormative norms; quite the contrary, it reinforces them.
Mariam Shahriar and her Daughters of the Sun are more courageous as in this
case cross-dressing implies issues of gender identity and it challenges the heteronormative canon. In a rural area, a father disguises his a poor girl as a boy in order
to find a job in a carpet factory. The girl must have both her hair and the name cut,
which from the original “Amangol” becomes “Aman”. The factory owner is a tyrant who mistreats his workers, most of whom are girls: one of them, Bilghis, falls
in love with Aman and begs her/him to marry her in order to be saved from an arranged marriage with a much older man. Aman is caught in a painful dilemma, and
delays her answer until one day, the desperate Bilghis hangs herself. Aman, exasperated by both her friend’s death and the owner’s oppression, resolves the situation in a cathartic way, by burning down the factory and running away.
In the course of the story, the emotional tension between the two protagonists is
palpable and evident through the glances they exchange. It is true that Bilghis does
not know (or does she?) that Aman is a girl, but Aman is well aware of being a girl:
or isn’t s/he? Cross-dressing, in this case, opens a window onto gender ambiguity,
as it allows the film to suggest that “other” ways of love are also possible. While
protesting against the injustices of life (such as the poor conditions faced by rural
people; social iniquities; the abuse of power; prevarication and violence against
women and children; the exploitation of young people’s work etc.), the film creates
a space for non-heteronormative codes, a site of gender and sexual transgression
that takes advantage of the incumbent silence (dialogues are rare and laconic) to
cry out for justice, including gender justice. Daughters of the Sun challenges the
status quo and becomes a form of political opposition. It stages a queer situation in
that it acts against the normative institutionalism and the roles determined by the
hegemonic culture.
Baran, the third film that ideally belongs to this group, is also set among the
wretched of the earth, i.e., the community of Afghans exiled in Iran who are condemned to the worst jobs in order to survive. Like Amangol, the young Afghan
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girl, Baran, works in a construction site disguised as a boy under the name of Rahmat. Baran/Rahmat is too weak to lift the bags full of bricks, therefore the master
builder decides to appoint her/him as cafeteria attendant, thus depriving of this
chore Latif, who now has to lift heavy weights instead of preparing tea for the
workers is angry and starts bullying Baran/Rahmat, until one day, he happens to
see Baran in hiding while combing her long hair. Latif is shocked, suddenly falls in
love with Baran/Rahmat and becomes her protector. Now gender trespass becomes
the protagonist of the plot and enables the director to narrate a story of love between the two teens (whose sexual identity is blurred) with both tact and passion. It
underlines the director’s choice to set the fiction in the Afghan community as a
way of dislocating the burning issue of gender identity. Thus, the gender ambiguity
of this love is separated from the core of “Iranian” society as if it were a problem
that does not concern it. Gender ambiguity is displaced in a Persianate subaltern
society, among people who, generally speaking, Iranians consider inferior. As a result, this “sub-setting” allows not only a reflection on gender(s), but also a sociocultural critique on the ways Afghan refugees are (ill)treated in Iran.5 Like Daughters of the Sun, Baran also aims not only to address queer questions, but also to
give voice to the marginalized groups. In this way it becomes an allegorical agent
for the representation of power and its abuses.
From allegory to realism
In the following years, the representation of gender transgression became less
allegorical and more realistic, thanks to the flood of films about Iranian
transgenders. Imam Khomeini’s fatwa making these operations religiously and legally licit is resumed by another cleric, the hojatoleslam6 Kariminia, whose deep
research on the subject brings to both a proliferation of sex reassignment surgeries
and to a wide debate in Iranian society. Among the results, we have seen a diffusion of documentaries that claim to portray Iranian transgenders’ real lives, or, rather, their troubles. Iranian female film directors seem to be more receptive to this
discourse, and most documentaries on this topic have been made by women such
as: Mitra Farahani (Juste une femme, 2001, Iran, 30'); Negin Kianfar and Daisy
Mohr (Birthday, 2006, Netherlands, 82'); Zohreh Sheyasteh (Inside Out, 2006,
Iran, 39'); Tanaz Eshaghian (Be like others, 2008, Canada, 74').
Some male directors follow suit, such as Kouross Esmaeli (Legacy of the Imam,
2006, Iran, 14'); and Peyam Khosravi with Babak Yousefi (I know that I am, 2006,
Canada, 70'). All these docufilms seem similar, as they follow the same pattern by
showing the lives of trans waiting to have the operation or soon after it.
Sex is my Life, a catchy title but with nothing to do with the original Khasteg"
(Tedium) signed by Bahman Mo'tamedian (Iran, 2008, 76') is slightly different. It
is a film that is delicate, thoughtful, introspective, dramatic and less stereotyped
than its predecessors in representing the Iranian LGBTQ.
5
On the situations of Afghans in Iran, see the issue of Iranian Studies 40(2) 2007.
6
A title for Shi’a clerics.
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DEP n. 25 / 2014
The above documentaries follow real people who narrate themselves while
opening queer windows onto Iranian society. There is no plot as the movie whirls
around the protagonists’ lives, and the predominant role played by certain situations concerning sex and gender.
In the same line we can also place the feature film, Cul de sac, directed in 2007
by Ramin Houdarzi Nejad (GB, 98'), although it also contains a touch of contestation against the West and its false claim of being “the land of opportunity” for everybody, including non-hetero people. The plot is inspired by the true story of Kiana
Firouz, an Iranian lesbian who used to be a filmmaker and activist for the Iranian
homosexual women’s rights and who eventually managed to leave the country and
take refuge in the UK.
In the film, Kiana comes to know a journalist, Sayeh, a human rights activist
whose expertise is focused on the Iranian society. It takes time for Kiana to trust
Sayeh but a friendship between the two slowly builds up. One day Kiana discovers
that the security service is after her; consequently she makes an application for asylum in the UK, but the British authorities paradoxically turn her application down.
Despite all evidence, her appeal against this decision gets no chance to be allowed.
She is about to be deported from the UK back to Iran where she risks to be incarcerated, but finally Sayeh helps her out of this situation. The film is an act of accusation not only against the Iranian government but also against all the governments
that pretend to be less biased than the Iranian, but behave in the same way, unless a
huge opinion movement is raised against their hypocritical decisions.
From realism back to melodrama: the importance of Western reception
Most of the cited films have been shot outside Iran, and only some of the interviews are conducted there; in addition, they prevalently target a transnational audience, including the Iranian diaspora abroad. This international aim is evident from
the common frame in which the films are cast, which portrays Iranian homosexuals
and trans as victims of their native “culture” that is juxtaposed to the (supposedly)
free queer scene in the West. As, apparently, the Western public is obsessed with
the representation of Iranian sexuality, especially in its queer manifestations, this
wave of docs and films on Iranian transgenders therefore nurtures the Orientalist
topos of Iran as the site of unrestrained sexual pleasure (especially in its homosexual form), formerly immortalized in 19th and early 20th century travelogues. This
erotic/exotic image has been more recently rekindled by journalists (but also, unfortunately, by some “native informers”) who have filled pages by narrating the
“sex&drug&rock&roll” life of young and less young Iranians in spite of (or, rather,
because of) the harsh restriction preached by the authorities.
An interesting case in point is the film Circumstance, shot by Maryam
Keshavarz in 2011, which tells the story of two girls’ rebellion and of the love between them. The film has attracted a wide international audience, but has been criticized by some Iranians for its lack of authenticity. Among the various critiques, it
has been observed (Houshyar, 2013) that the actors speak Persian with a heavy
American accent (for most of them grew up in the US). Also, being shot in Lebanon, there are many discrepancies in the natural and urban scenes, in the charac50
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ters’ costumes and house decorations; besides, there are many instances of disconnection between what the movie portrays and the reality of Iranian life. In addition
to the critique of its many technical mistakes, Iranian lesbians and feminists have
also added that the movie is extremely shallow and offers a stereotypical exotic
fantasy rather than showing angles of real lesbian life in Iran.
Circumstance is far from the depth of feelings shown in Daughters of the Sun;
the protagonists are beautiful also according to Western standards and open to the
voyeuristic gaze. The (male) audience’s pleasure is satisfied by uncountable love
scenes to the detriment of the development of the protagonists’ characters.
As a matter of fact, the film turns into an act of cinematic voyeurism that perpetuates the fantasies nurtured by many Europeans who in the past came into contact with the Middle East about the “behind the veil” life in the Oriental harem, a
notorious topos which has come to symbolize the hidden sexual lives of Middle
Eastern women. Other than this, Circumstance seems to be shot under an Orientalist gaze that objectifies women’s bodies, i.e., those of the protagonists, Atafeh and
Shirin, who are screened as performing erotic belly-dancing, drinking alcohol, consuming drug and attending sex-filled underground Tehrani parties. Atafeh and
Shirin are transgressors who cross the boundaries of gender by a life of excess, thus
becoming exceptional. Their homosexuality is not considered a “normal” situation,
a possibility, but again as a representation of women’s bodies who titillate an audience.
Of course the Western spectators sympathize with Atafeh and Shirin who are
the perfect protagonists of the fantasies casting Iranian youth and their protest in
the simplified formula of a “lipstick jihad”. At the same time, Circumstance offers
another pillar to the campaign launched in post 9/11 West in order to “save” Muslim women who are, as the film promo states “struggling with their desires and the
boundaries placed upon them by the world they were born into”. 7
The film also serves the didactic purpose to show that Iran is not a “country for
women” and for other genders except the masculine one. Interestingly, the only
male protagonist, Mehran (Atafeh’s brother) is represented as the quintessence of
Evil. He is not only a drug addict, but also a “fundamentalist” who pretends to
judge his sister’s immoral behavior while, at the same time, he is attracted by her
homoerotic performances with her friend Shirin. The character played by Mehran
dramatically, or, rather, preposterously, embodies the arrogance of the “Islamic
man” contrasted to the legitimate aspiration of (homosexual) women. Therefore,
stereotypes on LGBT are apparently revised but, as compensation, those regarding
(Iranian, Middle Eastern) race and (Muslim) religion are reinforced.
An oblique social critique
Though, as mentioned, this cinema production mainly addresses the West, it is
also available in Iran through unofficial channels, where it is mainly received and
perceived as both a sign of Western hegemony and of the missionary stance of
7
http://www.metacritic.com/movie/circumstance/trailers/2129281, accessed 26th February 2014.
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Western gay imperialism (of the type so well-stigmatized by Joseph Massad,
2002). However, in contemporary Iran the discourse on sexuality, trans-sexuality,
queerness and so on, is spread at multiple levels, and cinema can constitute a crucial space of negotiation.
A good sample of this attitude is represented by the film Facing Mirror
(#yneh!-ye ruberu, 2011) and its aftermath. Directed by Negar Azarbayjani, the
film narrates of the unusual friendship that develops between Rana, a traditional
wife and mother who is forced to drive a cab to pay off the debt that keeps her husband in prison, and trans Adineh/Edi who is desperately awaiting a passport to
leave the country to escape an arranged marriage engineered by her father, and to
get a transsexual operation. When Rana discovers that Edi is a transgender, initially
she has a hysterical reaction and rejects what she considers to be an almost demoniac creature. However, soon Rana experiences Edi’s gentle nature, and a close
friendship develops between the two.
The film exhibits some didactic moments, i.e., when Edi explains that it is legal
to have a sex change operation in Iran and loans are available for it, but that the
procedure is not likely to meet widespread approval from society in general or
from the individual’s family in particular; this is the reason why Edi is trying to
migrate to Germany. Perhaps, this might be the director’s escamotage to counteract
the plethora of documentaries built for a foreign audience that demonize Iran.
The sexual ambiguity of the actress chosen to embody Edi, i.e. Shayesteh Irani,
is perfect. As a matter of fact, she had already performed an ambiguous character
in Offside, the film by the celebrated director Jafar Panahi (2006), featuring a group
of girls disguised as boys desperately trying to get access into a stadium in order to
watch an international match played by the Iranian national soccer team. Panahi's
film mainly addresses issues of women’s freedom, as women in Iran are still hindered from watching a men’s soccer match in a stadium. In Offside Shayesteh Irani
stretches the limit of the cross-dressing game played by the other girls, because her
real sexual nature is so ambiguous that even the soldiers in charge of checking the
girls and holding them doubt about her identity. And when she is directly questioned if she is a boy or a girl she brazenly answers: “What do you prefer?”.
The major weakness of Facing Mirror is, in my opinion, that Edi is represented
as totally positive hero/heroine, resolute, unbiased, generous, unselfish, a positive
stereotype that aims to counteract the trite descriptions about the LGBT people,
and to establish their new image. Though the operation is genuine and understandable, the risk is to switch from one stereotype to another. However, though recurring to some stereotypes, Facing Mirror is not stereotyped and constitutes, so far
the best Iranian film on LGBTQ issues.
In Facing Mirror, besides the central theme of transsexuality, other essential issues are on the stage, such as those related to class. Rana and Edi belong to two
very different strata of the population, i.e. respectively, the low and poor and the
middle and well off.8 The film, therefore, underlines the contradiction of a society
8
The relationship between homosexuality and class in Iranian cinema needs to be further analyzed. I
would like to mention, for example, how Mania Akbari, one of the more experimental Iranian film
directors, deals with lesbianism. While in her 20 Fingers (Bist angosht, 2004) one of the protagonists
challenges her husband by evoking her allegedly homosexual affair, thus using homosexuality as a
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in which a family struggles to make ends meet, while another lives in a luxurious
apartment with several cars at their disposal. We are far from the rural, almost
ghostly atmosphere of Daughters of the Sun or similar settings. Here we are in the
urban context in which seven out of ten Iranians normally reside; this is the life
most Iranians live and each of them could meet an Edi round the corner. In the previous films, cross-dressing was more often than not a strategy, a device in order to
feature love stories that could not be narrated otherwise, thus bypassing the problem of the veil that is mandatory for the actresses even when they embody women
acting in their domestic sphere (in which no Iranian woman would wear a veil!).
In Facing Mirror, cross-dressing is non pivotal, as the possibility to change sex
in reality allows a representation of queerness at the light of the ongoing social
transformations. Edi’s situation is a pretext to talk about issues such as the need to
change not so much Iranian laws but, rather, Iranian society itself. In fact, the movie underlines how, even if it is possible to change sex legally, the real problem is
the family’s reaction to this event and the societal disapproval. However, family
can also represent a valid help, and, as a matter of fact, Edi will be saved from an
unwanted marriage thanks to her brother’s help.
The film also shows women’s responsibility in the slow process of changing
mentality, as many of them are conservatives and reluctant to change the status quo
(see, for example, Rana’s first reaction to Edi's gender identity). The film denounces how women’s solidarity is often an empty word. When Rana asks two apparently modern girls who sit in her taxi not to smoke, their reaction is harsh, and the
young women not only refuse to put out their cigarettes, but mock Rana by telling
her that it would be better to have her husband as taxi driver. Here the issue of a
still-undigested modernity (represented by the two girls who wear heavy make-up
and pretend to act provocatively, but, in reality, consider taxi-driving as a male job)
comes to the fore, though it is set in a queer context. Therefore, the film offers a
variety of queer situations, not only or not necessarily connected to nonheterosexual situations. In this respect, I argue that this film represents Iranian contradictions and queerness.
It is also interesting that, in its dialogic process, the film has opened a space for
discussion and negotiation that was greatly desired in Iran, so much so that it triggered a discussion about transgenderism held at the Mofid University in the ultraconservative town of Qom, a meeting that hosted as key speakers, hojatoleslam
Kariminia, Negar Azarbayjani and members of the cast. This is proof that cinema
can be a suitable space for both conflict and negotiation, and that the two can be
rearranged in the site of civil society.
provocation, a way to push boundaries, in From Tehran to London (Az Tehran ta Landan, 2012) the
relationship between a bored bourgeois woman, Ava, and her maid Maryam hints to a replica of the
“harem” liaison, thus proposing issues of hierarchy and power structure in (homosexual) relations.
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Final remarks
In the last decade, LGBTQ issues have become more and more present in Iranian cinema and themes related to the lives of homosexuals and transgenders have
been examined in both documentaries and fiction films. Part of this production certainly aims at a Western audience (as well as at the Iranian diaspora), since directors have experienced that LGBTQ themes attract attention and prizes. Circumstance has so far been awarded fourteen prizes from international festivals
(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1684628/awards); and documentaries such as Be like
others, have also collected, in addition to several prizes, positive reviews and enthusiastic reception in the most important LGBTQ film festivals. However, it is
undeniable that Iranian cinema produced also to be consumed domestically presents an evolution of LGBTQ representation.
New Iranian cinema has multiple functions. One of the most important is its being a site of contestation of the IRI and its restrictive socio- and cultural policies,
including those related to sex and gender. In this respect, cinema has become a
lively arena in which gender intersects with other identities such as class, race and
sexuality. In addition, this new cinema stimulates a debate that is becoming wider
and wider, as is proved by its reaching the traditional sanctuaries of the universities
located in the religious conservatives’ stronghold of Qom. The LGBTQ question is
only one of the controversial issues debated inside Iranian society and sometimes it
is a pretext to make people reflect and discuss other encompassing topics such as
the position of women; the level of freedom of Iranian society; the contrast between modernity and tradition; the role of the family, and, last but not least, class
struggle. At present, Iran is the site of contradictions par excellence, and its cinema
stages the tension among the country’s different souls. Its performing queer situations constitutes, as a matter of fact, a wider and deeper representation of the general queerness Iran and its society are experiencing.
References
Abdi, M. Ali. 2011. Gender Outlaws between Earth and Sky: Iranian
Transgender Asylum Seekers Trapped within Heteronormative (inter)national
Frameworks, Master Thesis Central European University, Department of Gender
Studies.
Bahreini, Raha. 2008. “From Perversion to Pathology: Discourses and Practices
of Gender Policing in the Islamic Republic of Iran”. Muslim World Journal Human
Rights, 5 (1).
Houshyar, Shima. 2013. Queer and Trans Subjects in Iranian Cinema: Between
Representation, Agency, and Orientalist Fantasies. Accessed February 2014.
http://ajammc.com/2013/05/11/queer-and-trans-subjects-in-iranian-cinema
between-representation-agency-and-orientalist-fantasies/.
Iranian Studies. 2007. Special Issue Afghan Refugees. 40(2).
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Massad, Joseph. 2002. “Re-Orienting Desire: The Gay International and the Arab World”. Public Culture, 14 (2): 361-386.
Rahimieh, Nasrin. 2002. “Marking Gender and Difference in the Myth of the
Nation: A Post-revolutionary Iranian film” in Richard Tapper, ed. The New Iranian
Cinema. Politics, Representation and Identity, pp. 238-253. London: I.B. Tauris.
55
Something is happening: Queerness in
the Films of Karan Johar
by
Margaret Redlich
!
Abstract: In Dostana (2008), an Indian mother learns that her son is gay. She declares she will
take him back to London where he will be better, but an older Indian gay man, witnessing
this, stops her and cries out “Look at me! Miami or London, your son is gay! He likes men!
Wake up!” Homosexuality strikes at the very core of the Indian identity. Although it has long
been present in Indian popular culture, it has been camouflaged by the concept of “yaari”
love, a love between friends that can be closer than that between a man and wife. Meanwhile,
as recently as the late eighties, Indian physicians still considered homosexuality to be a disease, treatable by electric shock. In my paper – through an analytical reading of Karan Johar’s
movies – I argue that his way of presenting the homosexual couple slowly brings queerness
into the light, avoiding controversy in the Indian public sphere.
Although homosexuality in India is still a taboo subject, an increasing number
of Indian movies in recent years deal with queerness. These generally fall into two
categories: the artistic film that treats homosexuality as a societal issue and is barely addressed only to the Indian public, and the mainstream film that deals with it
purely as comedy. Nonetheless more and more films have begun to have gay side
characters.
Karan Johar’s movies bring homosexuality into the light by treating the subject
in a different way. Johar’s Dostana (2008), Kal Ho Na Ho (KHNH) (2003), and
Student of the Year (SOTY) (2010) are both popular and progressive. A close textual analysis reveals the ways Johar balances mainstream concerns with subversive
elements, which allowed his message of acceptance to influence a large number of
South Asians. Johar uses his films to support the gay community’s struggle for
acknowledgement including blatant queer elements to the plot and for acceptance
positioning his characters and stars as accepted by the gay community.
The main difference between art house films and Johar’s films lay in their audience. While Dostana was 2008’s 10th most profitable movie in India (boxofMargaret Redlich holds a Masters of Cinema and Media Studies at DePaul University Her research
focus on Indian popular culture. [email protected]
!
© DEP
ISSN 1824 - 4483
Margaret Redlich
DEP n. 25 / 2014
ficemojo.com 2014), Fire was not even released in Indian theaters until after it had
been out in the West for more than a year, while the most well-known parallel
movie in India on the issue, Onir’s I Am (2011) – which won a National Award –
was still a box-office flop (Adesara 2011). Johar managed to craft a film that included a message of gay acceptance without sacrificing audience reach.
Johar has been including queer messages in his films from the beginning. His
first film Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (KKHH) (1997) revolves around the unspoken love
1
between two friends. It deals with the idea of yaari love through the relationship
between Anjali, played by Kajol, and Rahul, played by Shahrukh Khan.
KKHH establishes Anjali and Rahul as “best friends”. In fact, Anjali describes
them as yaars. While Rahul may chase after women all around the University campus, it is his relationship with Anjali that truly matters. Anjali, meanwhile, has no
interest in boys or other traditional matters of her gender norm. She begins to have
feelings for Rahul, but fears he will reject her. Finally, she has a conversation with
her foster mother who urges Anjali to reveal her love, because telling it will make
her feel better, there is nothing to be ashamed of. Anjali rushes to tell her love, only
to learn that Rahul has fallen in love with another girl. Two close friends, one of
whom falling in love with the other, while the former remains totally unaware and
uninterested is, following Arvind Kala (1991), a common story. Gay men first fall
in love with their best friend, or become friends out of love for another man, only
to realize their love is not returned (Kala 1991: 23, 18, 71, and 123). Johar strongly
positions the romance in the second half of the movie as a social necessity, providing Rahul with a proper wife, his mother with a daughter-in-law, and his daughter
with a mother. KKHH went on to great success, containing the possibilities of forbidden love between friends within societal expectations.
Kabhi Alveda Na Kehna (2005) took the theme of forbidden love and never restrained it within the boundaries of traditional Indian behavior. The story follows
two married South Asians living in New York who start an affair. In many ways
this film is a remake of Silsila (1981), a popular movie by Yas Chopra, with two
main differences. In the first movie, the couple falls in love before they are married, and then reignites the affair after their marriages. The movie ends with a reaffirmation of marriage as the cheating couple reunites with their spouses. In Johar’s
movie the couple meet and fall in love after they are married and the film ends with
them both being divorced prior to reuniting. Finally, KANK shows the disgust present in the physical relationship between the married couples, while Silsila shows
physical comfort and pleasure within the marriages. The post-marriage meeting between the couple turns the relationship into an irresistible impulse, outside of society. The physical disgust emphasizes the sexual nature of the attraction (Kala 1991:
48, 74, and 76).
Kal Ho Na Ho (KHNH) (2003) was the first to take these themes out of the
closet. While queerness in this film is purportedly a mere minor subplot, the entire
film invites a queer reading of the relationship between the two male characters. In
addition, the casting of the actors makes the queer reading even more tempting, as
1
Yaari love in Indian culture can mean anything from best friends as close as a husband and wife, to
same sex lovers (R. Raj Rao 2000; Ashok Row Kavi 2000).
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they have both struggled with rumors of gayness. Finally, the way in which Johar
wrote the Aman character – who does the most to encourage the humorous misunderstanding of himself as gay, as the perfect Indian man, and a supernatural being –
gives God and society’s approval to the gay lifestyle.
Johar also strongly positions KHNH as representing a modern, international Indian society. Gayatri Gopinath (2005: 163) argues it does this through “male homosexuality that marks and consolidates this newly emergent transnational Indian
subject as fully modern”. However, her argument focuses on the ways in which the
diaspora might react to the film, ignoring the ways in which it questions and challenges a traditional Indian audience. This is present from the opening of the film in
which a young South Asian woman (Preity Zinta), her voiceover speaking Hindi,
2
runs through New York scenes, ending up by the river, while Bhangra music plays
3
in the background, positioning her both as a South Asian and as a New Yorker.
The sequence ends with her sitting by the river (a subconscious reference to the
Ganges, the center of Hindu/Indian culture just as several scenes by the river are a
center of this film) as she gives her name, Naina Catherine Kapur, positioning her
both as an Indian through her first and last names, and a Christian (and therefore
Westernized) through her middle name.
The next few scenes establish the context of the film and the initial plot complications, and introduce the one bright spot in Naina’s life, her school friend Rohit
(Saif Ali Khan), wealthy and constantly getting into trouble. Once these various
plots have been established, Johar introduces the initial solution to them all, in the
person of Aman, played by mega-star Shahrukh Khan. The introduction of Khan’s
character begins with Jennifer, Shiv, and Gia, all sitting down to pray for an angel
to save them from their difficult situation. As they pray, the camera circles around
the familiar back of Shahrukh Khan, who stands on a boat facing the New York
skyline, positioned both as a modern international Indian, and, through the pres4
ence of the river, a traditional one, as well as an angel through the dialogue. Next,
as Naina comes into the room to kneel with the rest of her family, Khan appears,
again from the back, walking next to an older woman in a sari (clearly his mother),
5
helping her down the crowded stairs of a train station. Finally, he brushes by
Naina in a scene from earlier in the film in which she fights with her friend and
spills coffee, but in the earlier filming Khan was invisible.
As Naina’s voice over says “Dear God, if you’re listening, please send us an
Angel”, the camera moves out the window of the room to the balcony of the house
next door to finally reveal Khan full-figure, watching the family. He has been positioned as slightly supernatural through his disappearance and reappearance in the
early scene, and through his apparent spontaneous creation in response to the fami2
A popular musical form from Northern India.
3
This sequence is an example of Nilanjana Bhattachariya’s (2009) argument that song sequences in
films set within the diaspora serve to support the Indian identity of the characters.
4
As he makes his typical hand movement from numerous other films and interviews, brushing his
hair back from his face, identifying him to the audience as Shahrukh Khan, the superstar, not with the
character he plays.
5
Again, both a significant New York location and a location with resonance in Indian culture.
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ly’s request for an angel. In addition, this sequence has served to establish him as
the perfect Indian man who is comfortable both at home and abroad, and who loves
his mother. And finally, through the use of his familiar hand-movement, he also
plays himself, superstar Shahrukh Khan with a persona that ranges through all his
films.
Aman quickly inserts himself into the lives of Naina and her family, finally confronting Naina stating that she takes on too much responsibility and does not enjoy
what she has: “What is the point of praying to God if you do not appreciate the life
he has given you?”. Again, Johar positions Aman as speaking for God. He ends the
discussion by saying: “I know [what my problem is]. I am very sexy, but you are
not my type”, a foreshadowing of the upcoming second comedy track. Johar introduces this track when Aman and Rohit meet for the first time as the young people
go together to a “disco night”. The sequence begins with a series of shots establishing the disco location, dancers, bartenders, and so on. Next, Rohit and Aman share
a frame together as they drink in unison. They continue to share a frame throughout
the rest of the sequence, at first with Naina placed in between them as they face
each other, then as another woman joins them with all four characters facing out
and the two women on either end, until finally at the end of the sequence, Naina
forces herself between the two men to reach the bar and drink shots, which leads to
her dancing provocatively, while “It’s the Time to Disco” is being played.
Both the location of a disco, a traditional site of gay culture, and the first shot of
the characters, placing Rohit and Aman as a couple, serves to establish a possible
queer reading of the film for the first time. The queer readings continue for the rest
of the disco sequence as Rohit at first attempts to stop Naina from drinking and
from dancing. Aman stops him and instead encourages Naina. While the surface
meaning of the sequence could be that be Aman attempts to draw Rohit and Naina
apart, and make Naina loosen up in order to romance her, it could also be read as
Aman attempting to draw Rohit and Naina apart in order to romance Rohit, especially as he keeps Rohit close to himself, while encouraging Naina to leave the
group. At the end of the sequence, Johar re-establishes the heteronormativity.
Drunk Naina and Rohit are thrown out of the club; Aman takes their hands, one on
either side. As Rohit and Naina start to talk across him, Aman steps back and has
them hold each other’s hands, restoring the heterosexual couple.
This does not last long, however, as Johar begins the next scene with a shot of
the two men in bed together. They are curled up with Aman’s head on Rohit’s
shoulder and his hand on his chest, although they are fully dressed. Rohit, at first,
assumes Aman is his dog, petting his head and calling him by the dog’s name.
Aman, on the other hand, is fully aware of where he is and smiles with pleasure at
Rohit’s touch. Aman sits up with Rohit and explains that he spent the night there
because Rohit was too drunk to be left alone. He then negates that explanation by
casually reaching across Rohit’s body for a bottle of water. As they are tangled together in this way, Rohit’s maid, Kantaben (Sulbha Arya) comes in the room and
Aman proceeds to put on a show for her.
After this disturbing scene, Johar restores the heteronormativity once again with
a discussion of Rohit’s love for Naina. Soon after, Naina realizes she loves Aman
just as Rohit realizes he loves her, leading to another song. In this a series of char59
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acters answer the question what is love, and finally Aman declares he will show
what love is, followed by images of Naina and Rohit singing of their love. Within
the song, there are shots of other couples in love, a motorcycle couple, two children, an older couple, and two men fondling each other and laughing. They are included not as examples of sexual desire or as a humorous oddity, but sincerely as
an example of a couple in love. While the queer features of the rest of the plot are
used for comedy, this brief moment reveals an understanding of gay love as just as
valid as the other examples. This moment is especially unusual when understood in
the context on an Indian culture in which Arvind Kala, an experienced journalist
writing a book on the gay Indian experience, felt the need to clarify for himself and
his readers: “a gay’s attraction for men isn’t merely sexual, as non-gays think, it’s
emotional too. Incredible though it may seem, a homosexual falls in love with a
man with the same intensity as a heterosexual falls for a woman” (1991: 67).
A scene of Naina talking with her friend and Rohit talking with Aman about
how to confess their love follows this song. After finally making an appointment
with Naina to tell her, Rohit embraces Aman, saying “Today I am going to say
what’s in my heart. I love you Aman! I love you”. The two men separate, and
Aman starts blowing kisses at Rohit, who is oblivious. Aman, positioned as not just
the perfect Indian man, but in addition as an Avatar of God, enjoys being perceived
as gay, in fact courts it. He is putting his supernatural stamp of approval upon same
sex relationships. As the character is doing this, so is the star, Shahrukh Khan.
This leads to a plot movement which can only be understood through the context of Kantaban’s misunderstanding, which allows for the possibility that not only
might two South Asian men be gay, but also that they may be committed to each
other. In another scene, for example, Rohit’s father takes him to a strip club and
asks if he is “normal”. As he can’t bring himself to spell the word “gay”, he says:
“Kantaben mentioned you might be in love with someone [Italics mine]”. This is a
very revealing expression, giving the male relationship love status, rather than relegating it to “men who have sex with men”, a definition which is still common in
India (Sherry Joseph 1996: 2229). Later in the conversation, Rohit declares he is
telling his father “I am in love with someone, I want to marry them, I want to have
children with them”. His father, still thinking he is talking about a man, merely
asks “Is that possible?” He seems to be struggling to understand and accept the
situation, saying “In America, anything is possible; I asked for a daughter-in-law, I
got a son-in-law”. The reaction of Rohit’s is typical of a South Asian parent of a
gay man, struggling primarily with the lack of cultural context to deal with male
love in India, to define a relationship that has no definition (Joseph 1996: 22302231; Kala 1991: 83). After this, Rohit corrects his father, but not emphatically,
emphasizing that he is in love with Naina, not that he is straight, or acting angry at
the misunderstanding. This is not the kind of reaction experienced by the men in
Kala’s book, who describe anger and fear from the parents, not just confusion leading to acceptance (Kala 1991: 30, 83, and 85).
This conversation leads directly to Rohit’s father introducing him to a series of
eligible women, one of whom he begins to date, a minor plot movement, but one
that makes sense only in terms of the initial misunderstanding of Rohit as gay.
Aman breaks into Rohit’s apartment, while his maid desperately tries to stop him,
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he declares “I will kill myself, but I will never leave Rohit!” bringing up memories
of the many Indian suicides when two men or woman are driven apart (Kala 1991:
28-29). After he leaves, Kantaben prays to her religious idol to always keep the two
men apart.
Rohit proposes to Naina, she accepts, although she doesn’t love him, and the
wedding plans begin, including a large engagement party. Throughout the se6
quence, Aman expresses heartbreak. In the course of the engagement party planning, mention is made of an interior decorator from France. This character fits
nicely within Vito Russo’s (1987: 7, 26, and 36) definitions of the sissy as foreign,
expansively feminine, and surrounded by decadence. The first time he appears, he
wears all red with a beret, makes a face, and declares “Drapes!” Next Johar shows
him in black with a motorcycle cap, moving to give a garland to Rohit, before being stopped by Kantaben. Finally, he dresses in red again, this time the traditional
Indian garb and another beret, fluttering his hands as he moves aside to reveal the
decorated hall for the engagement party. At the party, of course, there is a big
dance number.
The number begins with Aman dancing and singing for the couple accompanied
7
by a female chorus, putting him in a female space. Later in the song, Rohit dances
with Naina in a western style. As he spins her out, Aman spins in. The two men
pause a moment, then shrug and start waltzing together, in an image reminiscent of
the early Edison films showing two men waltzing (Russo 1987: 7). As they waltz,
the interior decorator jumps up and down clapping his hands. The older image of
the sissy gives his blessing to the new image of the modern man, comfortable with
a fluid sexuality.
The wedding moves forward, again showing Aman heartbroken as he watches
the couple, but Johar allows for a reading that he mourns Rohit, not Naina. At the
end of the film, Aman lays in a hospital bed dying. He says good-bye to all the
main characters, but it is Rohit he saves for last. While the content of the conversation is their mutual love for Naina, the fact that this is his farewell, places the relationship between the two men above any other in the film. This scene was spoofed
in the 2003 Filmfare awards ceremony – sponsored by a leading film magazine, the
Indian equivalent of the Oscars – when Shahrukh Kahn and Saif Ali Kahn acted it
again, but instead of talking about Naina, confessed their love for each other.
Some authors criticized KHNH for providing a typical gay stereotype (Pramod
K. Nayar 2007: 123; Shohini Ghosh 2007: 424). However, what they ignore is the
invisibility of queerness in Indian culture, which makes even a stereotypical
presentation a triumph. In addition, as shown by the previous description, Johar positions the gayness within the narrative in a way that makes it legitimate. Aman, the
perfect man, the angel, enjoys being thought of as gay. In the same way, Shahrukh
Khan and Saif Ali Khan, popular male stars, used this film to show their own com6
In another scene of the movie, Rohit goes to Aman in his bedroom and says seriously: “I love you
Aman, I really do”. Aman pretends coyness and smiles and says “Why, thank you”.
7
Anupama Chopra (2002: 79) discusses the construction of his character in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayange (1995).
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fort with being thought of as gay. This is impressive for both men, as they have
8
both struggled with rumors of homosexuality.
Dostana makes queerness the centerpiece of its plot, impossible to be ignored.
At the same time, Johar uses it to promote acceptance through the ways in which
the various South Asian characters interact with gayness. While KHNH invites a
queer reading, Dostana almost demands it. Karan Johar has enormous power in the
industry, especially over his own films; he handpicks scripts, is involved with every aspect of filming, and chooses to work with the same small group of actors (Raja
Sen 2009). Therefore, even films such as Dostana, which he merely produced, or
KHNH, which he produced and wrote but did not direct, are still Karan Johar productions, following Tom Schatz’s (2009) idea of the “genius in the system”.
The start of the movie once again places Karan in control, with the titles reading
“Karan Johar presents” before the movie title. Following a series of establishing
shots of Florida, a mid-distance close up shows Shilpa Shetty’s back, just before
the first song music starts and the shot changes to John Abraham walking out of the
ocean in a miniscule yellow swimsuit. The camera moves up and down his body,
looking at his chest, his back, his waist, and paying scant attention to his face. After an interlude of singing with a female chorus, Abraham appears again, this time
in a red swimsuit and a white t-shirt, which he slowly takes off. He then goes into a
beach side shower where the camera watches the water run down his back. As
Laura Mulvey (2009: 717, and 719) discusses, Abraham’s identity is being removed as he becomes no more than body parts to be enjoyed while the female chorus stands in for the audience on screen, enjoying the spectacle. Even before the
plot begins, the film is already queer through the focus on the male body, letting
Abraham became a “molten beefcake”, as he was recently referred to in a review
(Nikhat Kazmi 2010). While his body has always been a main focus of the camera,
in this movie Karan Johar takes it to extremes.
The second male star/character is introduced. A large pink convertible drives
down the center of a bridge, driven by Abhishek Bachchan wearing a pastel shirt.
After a load of girls join him in the car, Shilpa Shetty sings to him as he wears a
variety of outfits and stands alone, disinterested in her. While Abraham is introduced as a sexual object, Bachchan is introduced as a potential consumer of Abraham’s sexuality, through his connection with queer iconography (pink colored car,
pastel colored clothing) and his clear lack of interest in women.
While KHNH delays the meeting of the two male characters until well into the
story, Dostana opens with the two men meeting. They run into each other at the
apartment shared by two women with whom they have just had sex. The two men
meet on the balcony having breakfast and introduce themselves to each other as
Sam and Kunal. They run into each other again trying to catch a cab, and then find
they are going to the same location. The way the two characters are constantly
8
For Shahrukh Khan, there are jokes about his close friendship with Johar (Shohini Ghosh 2007:
426). For Saif Ali Khan, there was his past associating with Akshay Kumar in a series of popular
films with led to them being called “Saikshay”. This culminated in the gay activist Ashok Row Kavi
specifically citing their relationship in Main Khiladi Tu Anari (1995) as gay, which led to Khan publicly punching him (Thomas Waugh 2001: 289).
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thrown together by fate is reminiscent of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayange (1995) and
Dil To Pagal Hai (1997), which introduced the idea that a couple meant to be together will meet many times until they finally start a relationship.
At this point, the relationship between these two men is clearly going to be the
centerpiece of the film, but it could still be perceived as the yaari type friendship,
and which can be read as either queer or straight. However, soon after their meeting, the queer interpretation is forced on both the characters and the audience. The
two men walk down the street getting to know each other better and sharing a hot
dog. At the hot dog stand they run into a white soldier who bursts into tears saying:
It’s just that my boyfriend has been sent to Iraq, and I am here. We were so happy after Afghanistan. It was perfect, we were like the perfect family, and I just saw the two of you standing there, you looked so happy, you reminded me so much of us. I mean really God bless you
both. I just wish you all the happiness.
This statement is given by an American soldier, in full uniform, and it is the
first time any part of the script explicitly states the possibility of queerness. America is confronting these two members of the diaspora and forcing them to
acknowledge queerness within themselves.
Kunal walks away. Sam chases after him and grabs his shoulder, trying to convince him they should pretend to be gay to get the apartment. Kunal shakes him
off, then is convinced partly by Sam’s first and most important argument, that
Kunal is his brother, meaning they could never be together. The brother relationship in India can be invoked easily through naming someone in that manner, the
same way the brother-sister relationship can be invoked. “Naach girls” (strippers/prostitutes) can even use this method to discourage unwanted suitors, treating
them as male relatives and negating any possibility of a sexual relationship (Suketu
9
Mehta 2004: 277).
The two men rush back to the apartment and present themselves as a couple. In
fact, when the woman says again that only girls are allowed, Sam says they are
girls, then tries again to explain using a series of euphemisms in Hindi, saying they
are together, they are both together, they are special friends, and finally, in English,
that they are boyfriends. There is no Hindi word for the relationship, they must use
an English one, perhaps the most dramatic example of the way in which queerness
in impossible in Indian culture. The same thing happens later when, after finding
out they will be sharing the apartment with someone else, Kunal asks “One-by-one,
do you want to tell everyone that we are…”. He cannot complete the sentence as
again, there is no Indian word that will convey his meaning, and Sam has to add the
word “gay”.
Finally, the joke is repeated one more time when their potential roommate,
Neha (Priyanka Chopra) appears. The two men rush off to discuss whether they are
9
This trope is used often in films to undercut homosexual possibilities, for instance in the shower
scene in Silsila (1981). The two stars, Amitabh Bachhan and Shashi Kapoor, are showering together.
They have an exchange about “dropping the soap”. Ashok Row Kavi (2000: 311) describes the experience of watching the film, suggesting that the exchange was so blatant as to be it actually became
less noticeable. However, he ignores the fact that the two characters are supposed to be brothers and
constantly refer to each other in that manner, therefore making the situation unromantic.
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willing to pretend to be gay to a beautiful woman while her aunt tries to convey the
situation to Neha. The aunt starts with “they aren’t what we are” then tries “they
are ‘modern’ boys” and finally saying “they are boyfriend and girlfriend”. The aunt
translates this as “it wasn’t like this in our days, boys used to like girls”. The idea
of queerness as being modern ties in both to the idea that it was something brought
by the British and placed upon Indian society (Arvind Narrain and Gautam Bhan
2005: 15) and with the idea proposed by Gopinath (2005) that the characters in
KHNH who play with the idea of gayness are the examples of modern Indian men.
During the next sequence, in efforts to stop the other from saying the wrong
thing, the men have erotic play together, Sam embracing Kunal as he tries to leave,
Kunal running and jumping on Sam when he sees the aunt overhearing a conversation. In reaction, the aunt, horrified, says in Hindi “All this isn’t allowed here.
Stand straight”. For the first time, discomfort is apparent in her reaction to their
relationship. However, this is only after they have performed physical acts that
might be considered uncomfortably explicit between a male and female couple as
well within Indian culture. The aunt questioning them on how they met, as she
might a heterosexual couple, supports this reading.
Sam makes up a story, staring deep into Kunal’s eyes, saying they met in Venice. The audience sees their first meeting, Kunal carrying flowers bumps into Sam
and drops them; their hands touch as they both pick them up. Remembering the
moment, Sam sings an old film song. Then he says: “For the next few days we kept
bumping in to each other”, again following the pattern of fate bringing them together. Sam describes his distress as Kunal turns away from him, but he kept
searching, finally finding him. Sam runs towards him, hips swaying, chest jiggling,
in slow motion, a classic shot in Indian cinema, usually the woman running towards her love. However, the immediate previous sequence of Sam’s quest for
Kunal is usually the male role. One of the problems for the gay and lesbian community in India is the lack of a defined role. This sequence suggests that role as a
combination of the male and female position. In the end, the two men meet by the
canal where they dance. Again, it plays into the trope that homosexuality was
brought by the British as the two men are wearing western style clothing and performing western style dancing
The second song sequence starts, establishing the relationship between the three
characters. After scenes of moving in, shopping, eating meals, there is a long sequence in a club. All the characters become drunk and first Neha dances on a table,
with minor crowd reaction, and then is joined by the two men, at which point the
crowd goes wild and starts throwing money at them. Again, men are positioned as
the object of the gaze.
Immediately following this sexualization of the men, there is a scene of Neha
coming out of the ocean in a gold swimsuit, with the camera lingering on her body,
as the two men react, having to cover their laps with magazines, firmly reinforcing
heterosexual attraction, both between the characters, and for the audience which is
forced to observe a woman’s body rather than a man’s. With heteronormativity restored, it is possible to have the next sequence in which they watch a scary movie,
followed by Sam sneaking into bed with Kunal. Following the song sequence, the
three characters share details of their personal lives, this means talking about their
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parents. Sam complains about his mother, especially the way she keeps pushing
him to get married. Neha takes this to mean that Sam has not told his mother he is
gay. It is easier for her to explain an Indian man not wanting to be married as his
being gay, rather than merely uninterested in commitment, reflecting the deep importance of married status in Indian culture, which makes being unmarried an admission of disinterest in women (Kala 1991: 139, 154, and 44; Joseph 1996: 2230).
Sam then lightens the mood by talking about how the Gabbar Singh character in
Sholay (1975) was gay. This is a ludicrous suggestion, but interesting, as the same
film contains one of the closest male to male relationships in the history of Indian
cinema, that between Veer (Dharmendra) and Jai (Amitabh Bachchan) (Ghosh
2002: 209). The suggestion that Gabbar is gay is safer, as it is clearly false, while
the suggestion that Veer and Jai were lovers is a valid reading.
Sam continues the argument in the next scene, when Neha is no longer with
them, suggesting a much more likely gay pair, Munna and Circuit (the gangster
characters from the film Munna Bhai MBBS, 2003). Without the female presence,
it is possible to suggest an actually legitimate gay reading of a film. Kunal shoots
this down pointing out they called each other brothers, but Sam argues “Even I call
you brother in public”. These two sequences show the ways in which the queer
community of India has learned to read Indian films, as Gopinath (2000) describes,
and invites the audience to read this film in the same manner. Especially as it negates the first argument Sam presented against he and Kunal having an actual relationship, as he regards Kunal as his “Bhai” or brother. This whole scene takes place
as they wait in line for residency permits. Following Neha’s suggestions, they decide to register as a joint couple in order to speed up the process. This is of course a
ludicrous idea of the American immigrant laws, and again a sign that this film was
made not just for a diaspora audience, who would be peculiarly sensitive to immigration status, but for an Indian audience too, who would not know about another
country’s laws.
The next sequence introduces the first truly gay Indian character in the film.
Neha’s boss M (Boman Irani), who arrives with a swishing gait and a screeching
voice, wearing a lilac striped suit. He announces to Neha that he is about to resign
and she is up for a promotion, suggesting she invites him over for dinner to meet
her young gay roommates. The following dinner sequence, while played for laughs,
is the confluence of several actual troubles for the gay South Asian community.
There is an expectation of loose relationships, as shown by numerous interviews
conducted by Kala (1991), which leads Neha to assume her roommates would be
willing to romance her boss, despite their established relationship. There are the
legal issues, as the immigration official Javier arrives in the middle of dinner to
confirm they are truly in a relationship. This is of course a through the looking
glass legal issue, as in fact gay men are more often required to act straight in order
to solve legal issues than the other way round. It plays into the problem suggested
by Diane Raymond (2003:107) in her article on American television that gayness is
often shown as a solution to a problem, rather than the creator of one. And there are
the family issues, as Sam’s mother arrives at the end of the dinner and reacts with
fainting and horror to the idea of her son with another man (Kala 1991).
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Later, after Sam’s mother (Kirron Kher) has arrived, M rushes him away, saying “Your mommy doesn’t know, does she?”. Then grabbing and embracing him,
saying “It really hurts, doesn’t it?”. Javier also touches him, holding his hand supportively, as Kunal stands to the side in discomfort. The whole scene shows the
supportive nature of the gay community, especially in a culture where most gay
men are not out even to their mothers. Interestingly, M himself breaks down, confessing his true Indian name, and that he has never told his mother either. This is
similar to the experiences described by Kala (1991: 60-63) of gay South Asians
who left home to live in America, there finding acceptance and comfort they could
never find within their own families. The mother interrupts this scene, screaming
“Nooooo!”. She declares she will take Sam back to London where he will be better,
but M stops her crying out “Look at me! Miami or London, your son is gay! He
likes men! Wake up!”. This is still a controversial statement to make in Indian
culture, in which, many respected doctors still regard homosexuality as a disease
that can and should be cured (Narrain and Bhan 2005).
The mother rushes off to Sam’s bedroom, where she sees a photo of Sam and
Kunal on the nightstand, and has a vision of Kunal in groom’s garb with Sam in a
bridal veil, while “Ma, your son rides a bridal palanquin, alas you’re done for”
plays in the background. Then there is a song sequence as the mother watches the
intimate ways in which the two men interact (rolling on the beach, Kunal putting a
bandage on Sam’s cut), and has a recurring vision of them as a bride and groom
couple. Then the two men working out together, which leads her to sneak into
Sam’s room and try to perform an exorcism, using a necklace of skulls, a broom,
and white powder. Next while walking down the street she sees them in a series of
couples, from babies to old men. At which point she faints again. The images and
lyrics themselves perfectly capture the concerns of an Indian mother, learning her
son is gay. However, rather than taking the mother’s part, the song positions her as
a creature of ridicule, whose concerns are invalid.
This song, like the sequence of the men dancing in the club, is followed by a
plot movement that dramatically restores heteronormativity. A new character is introduced, Neha’s new boss and a viable love interest for her. After nodding towards male-female love, the queer element is reintroduced when Sam’s mother
comforts Neha about losing her promotion. After making her feel better, Neha
takes the opportunity to talk about Kunal and Sam, saying “For the past three years
your son hid the biggest truth of his life from you because he knew that you
wouldn’t be pleased. You’ll be happy, but Sam? If he can live for your happiness
then can’t you accept the truth for his happiness? Whatever God does is for the
best, right Aunty?”.
After a buffer scene with Neha and her boss, Sam’s mom goes to Kunal’s room
and bless him, as the song “Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham” from the film of the same
name plays in the background, placing her acceptance of their relationship next to
the acceptance of forbidden love from the ultimate traditional family movie. She
continues with the full traditional blessing for a new daughter in law, before Sam
comes into the room asking what she is doing. Sam’s mom apologizes, saying she
prayed for her own son’s sorrows, and finally giving her bangles to Kunal, the traditional gift of a mother-in-law to welcome a daughter-in-law into the family, alt66
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hough she says “I don’t know if you are a daughter-in-law or a son-in-law” and finally asking him to keep the Karva Chauth fast (a traditional religious fast carried
out by wives for their husbands) for her son’s well-being, and to take her blessing:
“My victory be yours may you have children”, then pauses, and adds, “forget it”
(about the children). There is no cultural way for homosexuality to be addressed in
Indian culture, and yet this scene does an excellent job of showing how it can be
done. Although, as in KHNH, it is when the question of children arises that the parent realizes the limits of their acceptance, not believing such a thing could be possible. This scene effectively resolves the queer storyline.
For the rest of the movie, the two men plot to break up Neha and her boss, finally succeeding. However, before realizing their plot worked, they confess their love
to Neha, and that they lied to her and were never gay. Furious, she throws them
out. Later, they track Neha down at a fashion show, confess their scheme, and
apologize. The framing throughout this sequence has Sam and Kunal position on
one side as a couple while Neha and her boss are on the other, as in the disco sequence in KHNH. Kunal and Sam stand on the stage and declare that Neha is their
best friend and they lied to her. The crowd cheers in response, to which Sam repeats “We lied.” This gets an “aaaaaw” of disappointment. Again, this is a South
Asian fantasy of American acceptance, or rather the way the modest amount of acceptance in America looks to someone coming from a country which still endorses
electric shock therapy.
Finally, Neha’s boss says, in order to be forgiven, they should kiss each other.
The crowd cheers. Sam agrees first. Kunal points out he isn’t gay, Sam agrees that
he isn’t gay either, but they have to do it for Neha. And then he puts his hands on
Kunal’s shoulders and leans in as the both purse their mouths, but he can’t do it.
Neha starts to turn away, the film goes into slow motion, and Kunal reaches out
and passionately grabs Sam. The camera spins around the couple showing it from
several angles. While the initial kiss, after both men confirm their lack of gayness,
and with an a awkward forced coming together, would have been humorous, the
eventual kiss, sudden and violent, is both humorous in context, but erotic out of
context, especially as it is filmed in a typically romantic manner, with slow motion
and a spinning camera.
This idea is encouraged by the last scene of the film. Two months later, the
three friends are shown sitting a bench and Neha asks “When you both were pretending to be gay, at any point, did anything happen between the two of you?”
They react in horror, she declares she was just kidding, but after she walks away,
the two men look at each other and there is a flashback to the kissing scene implying one or both of them are thinking about it. As the credits start, a remix version
of the “Maa de Laadla” song starts, clearly placing the greatest importance of the
film on the queer story line and the ways in which it interacts with Indian culture,
rather than the hetero romance or the queer story line as pure comedy. Beginning
with KKHH, Karan Johar has been slowly expanding the possibilities of presenting
queerness in popular Indian cinema. With Dostana, as revealed through the plot,
the images, the presentation of the stars, even certain lines of dialogue, queerness
can no longer be ignored.
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Johar continued his slow unveiling of queer themes with his next directorial
mainstream hit, Student of the Year (SOTY) (2010). As Kaustav Bakshi and Parjanya Sen (2012) discuss, in this film there are two possible queer readings, one of the
central relationship of the film, between two teenage boys, and the other of the
school principal who is broadly drawn as being in love with the football coach. The
two boys’ relationship is part of the tradition of the possibly sexual or romantic
same sex yaari relationships previously described. More revolutionary is Johar’s
presentation of the character of the principal as an educated, responsible, and kindly man, who also happens to be in love with another man. However, ultimately, Johar contains this character, as his love is unrequited. One gay man, alone, cannot
threaten Indian society. He needs a partner in his love. The film briefly directly
acknowledges his lone status through the speech of the character Sudo at the end
who avers that the principal only drives his students so hard because he has nothing
else in his life own life, hinting at the misery and loneliness inherent in being a gay
man in India.
The films described so far were made for the masses, both in India and abroad.
They include massive inaccuracies he does not expect the audience to notice and
crowd- pleasing elements, as well as canny methods of containing the threat inherent in the queer content. Once he reaches this audience, he gently shows them that
homosexuality may not be the fearsome threat they think it is. He creates audience
sympathy for the tragedy of loving your best friend and being unable to express
that love. He allows for sexual attraction as an important part of married life, something which, if it is missing, forces a spouse to find it somewhere else. His ideal
man, his “angel”, has no fear of gayness and find harmless enjoyment in playing
with societal expectations. An Indian mother can accept and make sense of her
son’s sexuality and be happier for doing so. A childless gay man may search for
meaning and companionship by raising other people’s children but will never be
truly whole.
In his career, Johar has made one film aimed at a smaller, specific, audience. In
honor of the 100th anniversary of Indian film, four of the leading directors in India
today, Johar, Zoya Akhtar, Dibaker Banerjee, and Anurag Basu, came together to
make an anthology film titled Bombay Talkies (2013). The film was screened at
Cannes and enjoyed a limited release in India, but did not play in either the Indian
heartland or in the diaspora theaters abroad. The story line of the film takes the
jokes of Dostana and KHNH and plays them as tragedy. Two men meet, they fall
in love, their families find out, and their lives are destroyed. While Dostana built
the whole story line towards the gentle confrontation with the older generation
leading to the dominance of a younger, more accepting perspective on queerness,
Bombay Talkies moves past this concern in the first few minutes, when Avinash
(Saqib Saleem) breaks into his parents home, beats his father (in recompense for
the many beatings he had been given), and shouts at him that homosexuality is not
wrong. Immediately after this, the question of children is raised in the form of a
young girl singing an old Hindi film song. This girl is the witness and companion
to the two gay characters in this film, first joking with Avinash, then serenading
Avinash and Dev (Randeep Hooda) as they fall in love, and finally comforting Dev
as he sits with her, heartbroken. The film is part of an anthology in honor of the
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hundredth anniversary of Indian film, and the girl singing film songs is the only
connection to that theme, the greater message all four films share that movies are
India and India is its movies. This great connection to the Indian spirit can only sit
by and watch as India’s young gay men destroy themselves in misery. Unlike his
previous films, Bombay Talkies was aimed at the Indian gay community only
through its unsoftened content and limited release, not at the Indian mass audience.
Johar tells them that the motivation for all his work, the purpose of film itself, is to
provide them with the sympathy and comfort they cannot find anywhere else.
References
Adesara, Hetal. 2011. “Box Office: 6 Hindi Movies Fail to Make an Impact”.
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Bakshi, Kaustav and Parjanya Sen. 2012. “India’s Queer Expressions OnScreen: The Aftermath of the Reading Down of Section 377 of the Indian Penal
Code”. New Cinemas: Journals of Contemporary Film 10(2,3): 167-183.
Bhattacharjya, Nilanjana. 2009. “Popular Hindi Film Song Sequences Set in the
Indian Diaspora and the Negotiating of Indian Identity”. Asian Music 4 (1): 53-82.
Chopra, Anupuma. 2002. Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayange. London: British Film
Institute.
Dasgupta, Susmita. 2006. Amitabh: The Making of a Superstar. New Delhi:
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Dostana (2008)-Boxofficemojo.com”. Boxofficemojo.com. Accessed March
2014. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=intl&id=dostana.htm.
Ghosh, Shohini. 2007. “False Appearances and Mistaken Identities: The Phobic
and the Erotic in Bombay Cinema’s Queer Vision”, in Brinda Bose and Subhabrata
Bhattacharyya, eds. The Phobic and the Erotic: The Politics of Sexuality in Contemporary India, pp.417-437. London: Seagull Books.
Ghosh, Shohini. 2002. “Queer Pleasures for Queer People: Film, Television,
and Queer Sexuality in India”, in Ruth Vanita, ed. Queering India: Same-Sex Love
and Eroticism in Indian Culture and Society, pp. 207-219. New York and London:
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Gomathy, N.B. and Bina Fernandez. 2005. “Fire, Sparks and Smouldering Ashes”, in Arvind Narrain and Gautam Bhan, eds. Because I Have a Voice: Queer Politics in India, pp. 197-204. New Delhi: Yoda Press.
Gopinath, Gayatri. 2000. “Queering Bollywood: Alternative Sexualities in Popular Indian Cinema”, Journal of Homosexuality 39(3/4): 283-297.
Gopinath, Gayatri. 2005. “Bollywood Spectacles: Queer Diasporic Critique in
the Aftermath of 9/11”, Social Text 23(3-4): 157-169.
Joseph, Sherry. 1996. “Gay and Lesbian Movement in India”, Economic and
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Kala, Arvind. 1991. Invisible Minority: The Unknown World of the Indian Homosexual. New Delhi: Dynamic Press.
Kavi, Ashok Row. 2000. “The Changing Image of the Hero in Hindi Films”,
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Kazmi, Nikhat. 2010. “Jhoothi Hi Sahi”, Times of India, 21 Oct. Accessed
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2014.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/moviereviews/hindi/Jhootha-Hi-Sahi/moviereview/6787856.cms.
Mulvey, Laura. 2009. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, in Leo Braudy
and Marshall Cohen, eds. Film Theory and Criticism, pp. 711-723. New York: Oxford University Press.
Mehta, Suketu. 2004. Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found. New York:
Vintage Books.
Narrain, Arvind and Gautam Bhan. 2005. Because I Have a Voice: Queer Politics in India. New Delhi: Yoda Press.
Nayar, Pramod K. 2007. “Queering Culture Studies: Notes Towards a Framework”, in Brinda Bose and Subhabrata Bhattacharyya, eds. The Phobic and the
Erotic: The Politics of Sexuality in Contemporary India, pp.117-149. London:
Seagull Books.
Rao, R. Raj. 2000. “Memories Pierce the Heart: Homoeroticism, BollywoodStyle”, Journal of Homosexuality 39 (3-4): 299-306.
Raymond, Diane. 2003.“Popular Culture and Queer Representation: A Critical
Perspective”, in Gail Dines and Jean M. Humez, eds. Gender, Race and Class in
the Media: A Text Reader, pp. 98-110. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Russo, Vito. 1987. The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies. New
York: Harper & Row.
Schatz, Thomas. 2009. “The Whole Equation of Pictures”, in Leo Braudy and
Marshall Cohen, eds. Film Theory and Criticism, pp. 523-27. New York: Oxford
University Press.
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Sen, Raja. 2009. “My Name is Karan Johar” Rediff Movies, November 19. Accessed January 2014. http://movies.rediff.com/slide-show/2009/nov/19/slideshow-1-interview-with-karan-johar.htm.
Waugh, Thomas. 2001. “Queer Bollywood, or ‘I’m the player, you’re the naïve
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71
Homosexuality in the Middle East:
An analysis of dominant and competitive discourses
by
Serena Tolino
!
Abstract: The applicability of the category “homosexuality” in the Middle East has recently
been widely questioned: some scholars (e.g. Kugle and Habib) do not hesitate to talk of “homosexuality in the Middle East”, or “homosexuality in Islam”. Others, like el-Rouayheb,
Schmitt, Dunne, Najmabadi and Massad, are more careful in applying this category to nonEuropean contexts.Indeed, when we speak of homosexuality, but also of heterosexuality, we
are commonly referring to two categories which are the results of social and historical developments and which refer to what Foucault has defined as the “psychiatrization of perverse
pleasure”, which contributed to the definition and the creation of the category of the homosexual. A theoretical part of my paper will be devoted to a critical reflection on what analytical
categories we could use when dealing with “homosexuality” in the Middle East. In the second
part of the article I will look at the contemporary discourses on homosexuality, looking both
at the dominant perspective, where the “classical” approach seems to prevail, and at the competitive perspective, where the “new” approach is appearing.
Introduction. Constructivist and essentialist approaches to homosexuality
When dealing with studies on sexuality the question of universality or relativism of categories is inevitable. Early studies on sexuality focused on forms of
“sexuality” and “sexual identities” as innate in the human being and similar in any
context and any historical period. However, the important scientific impact of Foucault on the study of sexuality (especially his History of Sexuality) and the constructivist approach inspired scholars to question this concept: it soon became evident that it is necessary to evaluate sexuality as a historical product and a social
construction. It is necessary to contextualize sexuality and sexual identity, and to
consider that different histories lead to different approaches and epistemologies of
sexuality.1
Serena Tolino currently holds a position at the History Department, University of Zurich, where she
is working on “Die Männlichkeit der Hofeunuchen im Nahen Osten (700-1500)”. Her research interests focus on Homosexuality in the Arab World with a legal and historical approach. [email protected]. I would like to thank Lucia Sorbera for her valuable comments on an earlier
version of this article.
1
As an example of an essentialist approach to sexuality and homosexuality, see the controversial
book by John Boswell, Christianity, social tolerance, and homosexuality (University of Chicago
Press, Chicago 1980) and, regarding the Middle East, Samar Habib, Female homosexuality in the
Middle East: histories and representations (Routledge, London 2007) and Scott Kugle, Homosexuali!
© DEP
ISSN 1824 - 4483
Serena Tolino
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Nevertheless, a particularly important aspect to consider when looking at the
construction of contemporary sexuality is the impact of globalization. During recent decades, media and migration have caused an incredible process of contacts
and influences, which have also had an impact on sexual identities. Globalization
caused a certain homogenization of ideas, life-styles, and sexual identities. As underlined by Dennis Altman: “If by globalization we understand the range of shifts
in the social, economic, and cultural spheres which are part of the growing movement of peoples, ideas, trade and money across the world (Held and McGrew 2002;
Soros 2000), then globalization affects sexuality in a number of interconnected
ways” (2004: 23).
This does not mean that globalization simply exported a “Western” model of
sexual life into the “East”, whatever we mean by this expression. There is a continuous tension between what we can call the global and the local. As pointed out by
Corboz, “particular subjects in particular localities appropriate and negotiate global, regional and local ‘circuits of knowledge’ in order to construct their sexual identities” (Julienne Corboz 2009: 4). A passive “other”, simply absorbing from the
West, does not exist in the present, as it did not exist in the past. The construction
of a sexual identity is a process, a continuous negotiation between local values,
which are embedded in the cultural, familiar and social background of the individual and global values that reach individuals through the cinema, Internet, satellite
TV, social networks, and media in general and the movement of people. Local and
global values sometimes offer radically different models of sexuality. From the encounter between these two models emerges a third one, which is especially embodied in the younger generations, who are most exposed to this clash and who cannot
but represent new forms of identities.
In her compelling study on sexuality in Morocco, Carla Makhlouf Obermeyer
(2000) has demonstrated how globalization affects the field of sexuality, pointing
out that the impact of culture, tradition and religion never disappears, but there is a
continuous tension between the local and the global, which are endlessly negotiated.2 In this article, I argue that this also happens with regard to homosexuality.
Therefore, I will attempt to consider what analytical categories we could use when
dealing with “homosexuality” in the Middle East, looking at the local contemporary discourses on homosexuality, analyzing both the dominant and the competitive
perspective. My thesis is grounded on a close analysis of a set of diverse primary
sources, such as on-line fatw!s, published by the leading Islamic websites, like Islam on-line, OnIslam, Islam Questions and Answers, Islam-net, religious magazines and booklets, personal interviews to activists for human rights and documents
of Lebanese and Egyptian organizations. Through the analysis of these sources, I
argue that there are two competing discourses: the mainstream official, propelled
ty in Islam: Islamic Reflection on Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Muslims (Oxford: Oneworld Publications 2010). For a constructivist approach to homosexuality, see Michel Foucault, The History of
Sexuality, Volume 1, ed. trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Random House 1978, or ed. La Volonté de
savoir 1976); David Halperin, One hundred years of Homosexuality (New York: Routledge 1990) and
Joseph Massad, Desiring Arabs (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press 2007).
2
On sexuality in Morocco, see also Abdessamad Dialmy. 1988. Sexualité et discours au Maroc. Casablanca: Afrique Orient.
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by religious scholars, and the competitive one, propelled by LGBT organizations. I
am building on the Foucauldian notion of discourse, which refers not only to a linguistic tool, or to linguistic signs, but which intends discourses “as practices that
systematically form the objects of which they speak. Of course, discourses are
composed of signs; but what they do is more than use these signs to designate
things” (Foucault 1971, 49). Rather than the Foucauldian “dominated discourse”,
in this essay I use the phrase “competitive discourse”, which shows the capacity of
agency of the subjects embodying these ideas, shedding light on how they are not
dominated, but are active in challenging the dominant discourse and in contributing
to changing it.
Obviously in addition to globalization, other factors need to be taken into account: the transformation that the Middle East has undergone over the last century,
with a dramatic acceleration in the last decades of the twentieth century, especially
in urban contexts, has had an important impact.3 Urbanization and modernity in a
general sense have resulted in a challenge to traditional family ties and structures,
and this has probably helped individuals to feel free from social and family pressure and to live sexuality more freely. Therefore, this, too, should also be taken into
account when looking at sexual identities in the Middle East.
Homosexuality: a short history of the concept
When looking at “homosexuality” in the Middle East, as pointed out by Najmabadi, “some scholars have emphasized the utility of the concept of homosexuality.
Others have argued that we would be better in tune with the ‘Islamicate cultures’
own sensibilities if we focused on sexual practices” (Afsaneh Najmabadi 2008:
276). For example Scott Kugle and Samar Habib do not hesitate to talk of “homosexuality in the Middle East” (Samar Habib 2007) or “homosexuality in Islam”
(Scott Kugle 2010). Other scholars, like Khaled el-Rouayheb (2005), Arno Schmitt
(2001-2002), Bruce Dunne (1990), and Joseph Massad (2008), who take a constructivist approach to homosexuality, are more careful in applying this category to
the Middle East.
Common approaches to both homosexuality and heterosexuality refer, indeed,
to sexual orientation, as it is defined, for example, in this document by the American Psychological Association as:
an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions
primarily to men, to women, or to both sexes. It also refers to an individual’s sense of personal and social identity based on those attractions, behaviors expressing them, and membership
4
in a community of others who share them.
This definition of sexual orientation, and also that of the two categories of homosexuality and heterosexuality, are the results of social and historical developments which mainly happened within Western Europe and the United States be3
See also Fatema Mernissi, Islam and Democracy: Fear of the Modern World (New York: Basic
Books 2002.
4
American
Psychological
Association:
Sexual
http://www.apa.org/topics/sexuality/orientation.aspx (accessed March 2014).
74
orientation,
in
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tween the end of the 18th and the 19th century, and which refers to what Foucault
defined as the “psychiatrization of perverse pleasure” (Michel Foucault 1978: 105).
In this period, “the sexual instinct was isolated as a separate biological and psychical instinct; a clinical analysis was made of all the forms of anomalies by which it
could be afflicted; it was assigned a role of normalization or pathologization with
respect to all behavior; and finally, a corrective technology was sought for these
anomalies” (Foucault 1978: 105).
In those years Ulrichs published his Forschungen über das Rätsel der mannmännlichen Liebe, in which he considered the attraction of a man towards other
men as coming from a feminine instinct, embedded in his theory of the anima muliebris virile corpore inclusa. The man attracted by other men was the so-called
“uranian”. In the same period Károly Mária Kertbeny wrote on article 143 of the
Prussian Penal Code, which criminalized homoerotic intercourses, § 143 Des
Preussischen Strafgesetzbuchs und seine Aufrechterhaltung als § 152 des Entwurfs
eines Strafgesetzbuchs für den Norddeutschen Bund and Das Gemeinschädliche
des § 143 des Preussischen Strafgesetzbuches, (Volkmar Sigush 2008: 554) where
for the first time the words Homosexualisten and Homosexualistinnen appeared.
Westphal published a booklet on Die conträre Sexualempfindung, which according
to Foucault can be considered the official birth of the category of homosexuality:
“We must not forget that the psychological, psychiatric, medical category of homosexuality was constituted from the moment it was characterized – Westphal’s famous article of 1870 on “contrary sexual sensations” can stand as its date of birth –
less by a type of sexual relations than by a certain quality of sexual sensibility, a
certain way of inverting the masculine and the feminine in oneself” (Foucault
1978: 43). A few years later Hirschfeld wrote the famous Psychopathia Sexualis,
published in German in 1886 and in English in 1892. In this work the author attempted to describe in a systematic way all it was defined as perversion, which included sexual inversion, masochism, bestiality, and incest. Again in the same period in England a series of Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1897-1928) was published, with the first volume devoted to sexual inversion.
One of the consequences of this scientific interest was a broader understanding
of “sexual inversion”, which moved from the medical and psychiatric sphere to include also the legal field. Indeed, Magnus Hirschfeld in 1896, under the pseudonym of Th. Ramien, published a booklet entitled Sappho und Sokrates, in which he
analysed the argument and then founded the Wissenschaftlich-Humanitäres
Komitee, the first movement in the world for homosexuals’ rights, which aimed at
abolishing article 175 of the German Criminal Code of 1871, which penalised with
a minimum of two years of imprisonment those who practiced “obscene acts or had
unnatural conduct among men”.
To conclude, what is important for the purposes of this article is that this scientific and later advocacy movement was limited to Western Europe. To apply the
categories of homosexuality and heterosexuality to the Middle East, without taking
into consideration the specificity of the historical and cultural context, fails to produce a critical analysis. Indeed, as beautifully stated by Grewal and Kaplan:
If we can argue that historical analysis shows us that concepts of gender difference in medieval China were quite different from those in medieval Islamic cultures, we will begin to un75
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derstand that the legacies of these traditions with attendant identities and practices produce
new kinds of subjects in the present moment, (Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan 2001: 667).
This is particularly true for Medieval and pre-modern times, where the main criteria of distinction was not sexual orientation, the binarism hetero/homo sexuality,
but the type of role each person was supposed to play in a sexual relation. For example, on the social level, the main alternatives were the active or the passive role.
To simplify, we can state that the man was considered to be the active partner,
while the passive partner should have been a woman, either wife or a concubine, or
even a young boy or a slave. This last option was completely reprehensible from a
moral and a religious standpoint. In fact, according to religion, the important distinction is between licit ("al!l) and illicit sexual acts ("ar!m): the licit sexual acts
are intercourse with a wife or a concubine. Other kinds of sexual relations are considered to be illicit and, obviously, homoerotic intercourse (liw!# for males, si"!q
for females) are also considered forbidden. (Schmitt 2001-2002; Sara Omar 2012;
Serena Tolino 2013: 87-110). It is important to notice that these binary distinctions
(active/passive; licit/illicit) pertained only to the sexual act and in no way did they
refer to the sexual identity of the subject. This is why liw!# and si"!q cannot be
considered as equivalent to homosexuality. To confirm this point it is useful to
mention that there are two kinds of liw!#, the major and the minor: the first one is
anal intercourse between two men, the second is anal intercourse with a woman.
They were usually treated by jurists under the same category, and this confirms that
the main point was here concerned the illicitness of a sexual act, not the sexual
identity of the one who commits it.
In any case, liw!# and si"!q were (and, according to Islamic law, still are) prohibited. Nevertheless, law differs from social practices and both literary and historical sources show that, although prohibited by law and regrettable from a moral
standpoint, these same-sex practices were quite widespread and socially accepted.
For example, the Kit!b Muf!$arat al-%aw!r& wa’l-'ilm!n, written by al-!"#i$ in
the ninth century (al-!"#i$ 2007), discusses a controversy between a man having
sexual intercourses with concubines and a man having sexual relations with young
boys, analyzing both the pros and the cons of the two kinds of sexual preferences.
This book contributes to confirm what we have said: even in this case it was not
homosexuality as a sexual orientation to be discussed, but the anal penetration and
the sexual possession of young boys, which, moreover, were not always and not
necessarily consenting to the intercourse. This is quite different from homosexuality as a sexual orientation, which also involves emotional and affective aspects.
Moreover, the passive partner was usually a young boy; if an adult man desired to
be penetrated he was considered to have a medical pathology, which was called
ubna (Franz Rosenthal 1978, Ibn S%n" 1973, vol. II: 549, Hans Peter Pökel 2009).
These few remarks contribute to show that the use of the term homosexuality in
reference to the Medieval Islamic world is, to quote el-Rouayheb, “anachronistic
and unhelpful” (el-Rouayheb 2005: 3). When dealing with the past, the most effective way of dealing with non-normative sexualities in the Arabic and Islamic world
is probably the use of the indigenous categories, namely liw!# and si"!q. This
would enable the researcher to avoid cultural essentialism and the generalization of
concepts that developed over many centuries.
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Nevertheless, the question still arises with regard to the contemporary world
and it becomes fundamental when approaching studies related with the topic of
sexuality and homosexuality in the Middle East: Is homosexuality a useful and
even a possible category of analysis in the Middle East or should the old liw!#/si"!q dichotomy still be used even today?
Can we speak of homosexuality in the Middle East?
As I already mentioned, scholars like Habib and Kugle do not hesitate to apply
the category of “homosexuality” to the Middle East, both in contemporary and in
medieval times. On the contrary, the much debated and controversial book by Joseph Massad, Desiring Arabs, suggests that homosexuals were somehow “produced” in the Middle East by what he calls the International Gay, the LGBT
movement, which incited a discourse on homosexuality. Indeed, he states that: “It
is the very discourse of the Gay International, which both produces homosexuals,
as well as gays and lesbians, where they do not exist, and represses same-sex desires and practices that refuse to be assimilated into its sexual epistemology” (Massad 2007: 162-163).
Massad’s contribution to contextualizing the concept of homosexuality is certainly valuable. However, by depicting the Middle East as passive and unable to
change and, moreover, depicting the definition of sexuality as stable, he nevertheless is himself risking a radical essentialism. On the contrary, identities, like the
discourses which give rise to them, tend to change and are highly unstable (William Swann and Jennifer Bosson 2008).
Several factors confirm the emergence, today, of a homosexual community in
the Middle East. In Egypt in 2000 a website for homosexuals was created
(www.GayEgypt.com), and a movement, which is active in Egypt and Sudan was
established (Bedaaya) in 2010. Even more recently, in 2012, a magazine entitled
I"n!. Ma(allat )awt al-mi*liyya f& Mi)r (We, the magazine of the voice of homosexuality in Egypt) was published5 and then closed down for “security reasons”
(Eman el-Shenawi 2012). We can also mention A)w!t, an organisation of Palestinian lesbians, based in Haifa, or al-Qaws, a group of LGBTQ Palestinian activists,
Union des Gays et Lesbiennes en Algérie and Ab+ Nuw!s, in Algeria, the group
Kifkif, in Morocco, which also publishes a magazine, Mithly, or the most structured
organization for LGBT rights in the Middle East, ,elem, which is based in Lebanon, like MEEM, an organization for lesbians.
On the one hand, these are all important elements of innovation which should
make it possible to speak about homosexuality in the contemporary Middle East.
On the other hand, the traditional categorization of homosexuality as an issue of
sexual acts has not disappeared. In many sources homosexuality is represented as
an “act” which is committed by a free-willing person, as a “sin” which reasonable
people should avoid committing: this happens for example in the religious literature, where we find an articulated anti-homosexuality rhetoric, as we will see.
5
The
first
issue
was
originally
published
at
http://www.iglhrc.org/binarydata/ATTACHMENTfile/000/000/5712.pdf (accessed 20th June 2012), but has now been removed.
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These two different epistemological approaches were necessarily going to encounter and influence each other. The space where this happens quite often is fatw!s. A fatw! is a juridical opinion on a topic given by an expert in Islamic law (the
muft&) on request of someone who is technically called the mustaft&, the one who
asks for a fatw!. Fatw!s, and today especially on-line fatw!s, are a good source for
observing the transformations of Islamic jurisprudence, as muft&s are forced to reply to issues that are interesting for people in a given historical moment.
In the past, fatw!s were mainly requested by actors in the legal field, like judges, who needed an opinion based on Islamic law, or by people who wanted to have
an authoritative opinion in a legal proceeding in order to strengthen their position
(Haim Gerber 1994: 81). In some cases fatw!s were even “invented’ with the aim
to give a comprehensive account of Islamic law to students and people interested in
law, (Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen 1997: 4-5) while today the possibility of requesting a fatw! is open practically to everyone, as this service is being offered through
the internet, fax, phone, even television.6 Therefore, as homosexuality became an
issue in the Middle East between the late 1990s and early 2000s, fatw!s on this topic also appeared. Indeed, it is striking that prior to this period there had been practically no fatw!s on this topic.7 However, since that time there has been a flourishing
of these kinds of documents as if the emergence of a homosexual identity “needed”
a strong reaction from religious actors in order to clearly state that this could not be
accepted by Islam.
In fact, in the same period, LGBT movements became active in the Middle East
and what could roughly be called a homosexual identity began to emerge. People
started to define themselves as homosexuals, rather than simply “having sex” with
a same-sex partner. The emergence of an anti-homosexuality discourse was partially a response to this phenomenon. Nevertheless, homosexual activism should not
be understood as isolated: it is part of a broader social activism in the Middle East,
which became particularly strong at the end of the 90s and which situates peoples’
subjectivity at the edge of the social experience (Asef Bayat 2009).
The contemporary anti-homosexuality discourse
Fatw!s on homosexuality created a homophobic discourse that was embedded
not only in religious sources, but became a dominant discourse, in the sense that it
was created by religious actors that are influential and have the power to spread
6
See: Gary Bunt, Islam in the Digital Age. E-Jihad, Online Fatwas and Cyber Islamic Environments.
(London: Pluto Press, 2003).
7
Just to give few examples, I could not find any reference to homosexuality in the collections of fatw!s of &alt't (&alt't, Ma#m'd. 2004. al-Fat!w!. al-Q"hira: D"r al-&ur'q), al-&a‘r"w% (al-&a‘r"w%,
Mu#ammad Mutawall%. 1998 al-Fat!w!. al-Q"hira: Maktaba al-Tawf%qiyya), and (an)"w% ((an)"w%,
Mu#ammad Sayyid ‘Atiyya. 1989. Fat!w! -ar‘iyya. al-Q"hira: Mu’assasat A*b"r al-Yawm), three
very important Egyptian scholars and muft%s who respectively died in 1963, 1998 and 2010. I also did
not find references to homosexuality in the fatw!s published by D!r al-Ift!’ al-Mi)riyya, an Egyptian
Institution founded in 1895 and financed by the Ministry of Justice, which published a 20-volume
collection of fatw!s given by muft&s of the Institution, whose last volume was published in 1998 (D"r
al-Ift"’ al-Mi+riyya. 1980-1998. al-Fat!w! al-Isl!miyya. al-Q"hira: Wiz"rat al-Awq"f).
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this discourse even to different fields other than the religious one. Indeed, a similar
discourse can be observed in newspapers, books, TV broadcasts and even legal
verdicts and became particularly widespread from the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries. This discourse includes several arguments, but the
general idea is that homosexuality is incompatible with Islam and is, first of all, a
serious sin, which will be punished in this world and in the Hereafter.
One of the arguments used to strengthen this message is for example the reference to the story of the Prophet Lot, a story that is common to the Judaic, the
Christian and the Islamic tradition. According to this story, God sent Lot to the
people of Sodoma to warn them about committing illicit acts, and especially sodomy, but they did not obey him and therefore were destroyed.8
In the classical Islamic exegesis of the Qur’"nic verses it is believed that the
people of Lot committed several illicit acts, including sodomy of course, but also
aggression to travelers and flatulence in public. In contrast, in the contemporary
discourse on homosexuality, only sodomy is mentioned as a sin and as the reason
the people of Lot were destroyed (Islam Online 2004a). A fatw! states, for example, that “Prophet Lut’s people were addicted to this shameless depravity, abandoning natural, pure, lawful relations with women in the pursuit of this unnatural, foul
and illicit practice” (Ibid.). They were condemned “for their homosexual behavior;
as they were addicted to this shameless depravity (sodomy), abandoning natural,
pure, and lawful relations with women in the pursuit of this unnatural, foul and illicit practice” (Ibid.). The famous muft& al-Qara,"w%, who became famous for his
use of television channels,9 also maintains that “the people of Lot committed the
worse of moral perversions, homosexuality (al--u.+. al-(ins&)”.10 A#mad alSayyid Taq% says that: “Lot warned his people from committing the turpitude that
no one had practiced before, namely intercourse between men” (A#mad al-Sayyid
Taq% al-D%n 2004: 1167). Two elements are striking: the treatment of homosexuality as something to be “practiced”, to be “done”, and not as an identity, and the disappearance of any of the other sins committed by the people of Lot, which are not
even mentioned. On the one hand this is clearly a consequence of the topic of the
fatw!s, which are on homosexuality; on the other hand, this is a strategic choice
that is used to reinforce the prohibition of homosexuality. This discourse is not lim8
For the Qur’"nic version, see especially XI: 74-83; XV: 61-71; VII: 80-84. For the Biblical version,
see Genesis, XI–XIV and XIX.
9
Al-Qara,"w% is a theologian born in Egypt in 1926. He studied at the University of al-Azhar, from
which he also obtained a doctorate. After that, he moved to Qatar. He is very active from a media
point of view: he founded several internet websites and he conducts the famous broadcast on Al-az%ra, al-/ar&‘a wa’l-"ay!t. He published several books and he is also the president of the European
Council for Fatwa and Research. See Bettina Gräf, Medien-Fatwas@Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Die Popularisierung des islamischen Rechts. (Berlin: Zentrum Moderner Orient, 2010) and Bettina Gräf, Jacob
Skovgaard-Petersen, (eds.), Global mufti: The Phenomenon of Yusuf al-Qaradawi (London: Hurst &
Co., 2000).
10
Y'suf
al-Qara,"w%,
Fas!d
al-mu(tama‘.
www.qaradawi.net/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=3515&version=1&template_id=216&pa
rent_id=196 (accessed March 2013).
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ited to the religious sources. During the very famous Queen Boat case,11 several
newspapers referred to the defendants as “the people of Lot”,12 and even the verdict
makes mention of the story of the Prophet Lot (Ma#kamat -una# amn al-dawla
)aw"ri’ Qa+r al-N%l 2001, 55).13
When looking at the sunna,14 all the sayings of the Prophet Mu#ammad on homosexuality are deemed non-authentic by experts of "ad&*s15 due to the unreliability of their transmitters. Today, there is no longer any discussion in the antihomosexuality discourse on the authenticity of the different traditions attributed to
the Prophet. They are simply reported as historical truths because they constitute a
powerful means for deterrence, as their moral value is unquestionable for Muslims.
Another argument that is used in fatw!s is the description of this act as an act
against innate nature, against the fi#ra, a complex concept which is also to be found
in the Qur’"n16 and which refers to the nature according to which God created man.
According to this fi#ra, men should be attracted to women and vice versa. Homosexuality is depicted as a “deviation from one’s natural disposition and a departure
from the natural order” (OnIslam 2002a), a “dirty act against natural order” (Ibid.
2004a) or “a deviation from natural order and nature” (Ibid. 2002b). Anyone who
practices homosexual acts is described as “an animal responding only to his sexual
desires” (‘Abd al-Ra#m"n al-Qu," 2007: 71).17 Therefore, he is also implicitly being accused of renouncing the divine gift of intellect, which should be used to restrain animal instincts.
This “against nature” concept was also used by Y'suf al-Qara,"w%, who in his
famous broadcast al--ar&‘a wa’l-"ay!t stated that “the man tends toward the woman and the woman towards the man. It is a natural fact”.18 In his Al-"al!l wa'l"ar!m f&'l-Isl!m, he also stated that homosexuality is a “subversion of the natural
order” (Y'suf al-Qara,"w% 2004: 152).
11
A famous case in 2001 in which 52 alleged homosexuals were arrested and prosecuted. See: Serena
Tolino, Omosessualità e atti omosessuali fra diritto islamico e diritto positivo: il caso egiziano con
alcuni cenni all’esperienza libanese. (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 2013, pp. 218-233).
12
See for example “Qa,iyyat ‘abadat al-.ay)"n”. A$b!r al-"aw!di*, 15th May 2001.
13
As regards the repression of homosexuals, it is important to point out that this was not an isolated
case, but that the repression of social movements was quite generalized under the former President
Mub"rak.
14
The concept of sunna, which literally means “the beaten path”, acquired several meanings during
the first centuries of Islamic history. Linguistically it refers to the tradition, the local custom. During
the second century of Islam it came to mean in a more specific way what the Prophet Mu#ammad
said, did or approved, even with his silence.
15
A saying of the Prophet Mu#ammad. It consists of two parts: an isn!d, a chain of transmitters,
which usually leads to the Prophet Mu#ammad and the matn, the content of the saying.
16
Especially XXX: 30. So direct your face toward the religion, inclining to truth. [Adhere to] the fi#ra
of Allah upon which He has created [all] people. No change should there be in the creation of Allah .
That is the correct religion, but most of the people do not know.
17
See also Islamqa. No date. Lim!.! "arrama al-Isl!m al-si"!q wa’l-liw!#.
www.islamqa.com/ar/ref/10050 (English translation Why does Islam forbid lesbianism and homosexuality? www.islamqa.com/en/ref/10050) (accessed March 2014).
18
A
transcription
of
the
broadcast
can
be
found
www.aljazeera.net/channel/archive/archive?ArchiveId=336983#L2 (accessed March 2014).
80
at:
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DEP n. 25 / 2014
The alleged unnaturalness of homosexual relationships is confirmed by their
sterility, which is an attack on one of the most fundamental maq!)&d al--ar&‘a, the
purposes of the -ar&‘a, which require the protection of five elements: al-d&n, alnafs, al-nasl, al-m!l and al-‘aql (religion, soul, progeny, ownership and intellect).
The third point, al-nasl, would be threatened by homosexuality, which, being unable to guarantee reproduction, would be “destructive for the progeny”. According
to the authors, in fact, it is the duty of man “to populate and cultivate the earth”,
and homosexuality prevents the achievement of this goal, “adversely affecting the
birth rate”.19 Although Islam does not conceive of the sexual act as exclusively tied
to reproduction, it is man’s duty to reproduce and populate the earth. For this reason homosexuals are accused of selfishness, because, in order to satisfy pleasure,
they renounce reproduction. Because of this, the possibility of homosexual marriage is also strongly opposed and considered only as a way to “suit the unnatural
and immoral desire of defiant and lost people” (Islam Online 2004b). It is also refused because “marriage in Islam, as in all divine religions, does not only mean
sexual enjoyment but also the establishment of a family on hygienic and safe foundations” (Ibid. 2004c). Even attending one of these marriages would be forbidden
because “By ‘marrying’ so, those people are waging an open war against Allah
Almighty” (Ibid. 2004d).
The theory that homosexuals have been “created” in this way by God, and
therefore cannot do anything against their sexual orientation, is completely rejected, as it is believed that God creates men perfect. Homosexuality is an act, as we
have said, or at the most an “attitude”, which is considered reversible (Islamweb
2009 and 2010a).
Another argument that is pervasive in contemporary fatw!s is the idea that the
devil might have corrupted homosexuals in order to make them practice homosexual acts. In a fatw! requested by a man who had recently discovered his grandfather’s attraction to males, the muft& claimed that “Satan dominates him and manages His inclinations and attitudes to be in the way lewd that Satan wishes” (OnIslam
2010). In response to a young Egyptian who feels attracted by men, a group of muft&s of Islam OnLine highlights that “There are many teenagers that have been
tempted by Shaytan [Satan]. Unfortunately, they did not have the will power to resist and followed the suggestions of Shaytan” (Ibid. 2004b). For this reason it is
deemed necessary not to give to Satan any opportunity to introduce himself into
one’s life.
Sexually transmitted diseases, and especially AIDS/HIV, are also frequently
mentioned and are considered as divine punishments for non-Islamic sexual behaviours. According to one author for example aids isn’t even a disease, but a punishment (Munta+ir Ma$har 2006: 186), the “divine punishment for homosexuality”
(Ibid. 2006: 191), “God’s answer to the violation of divine law” (Ibid. 2006: 190).
On the other hand, homosexuality itself is depicted as an illness. Indeed, according
to one author for example, the desire to be penetrated is due to the presence of bacteria in the anal conduct, which at some point will also infect the active partner.
19
Islamqa. No date. Muslim attitude towards the sin of homosexuality. http://islamqa.info/en/ref/2104
(accessed March 2014).
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Though, no piety should be shown towards those afflicted by this illness, as it is
easily avoidable by not “practicing” unlawful sexual acts (Ibid. 2006: 126).
Various reasons are mentioned to “explain” homosexuality, as the need for an
explanation is felt, but also a number of suggestions on how to “recover”, like
praying, reading the Qur’"n, thinking about the punishment of the people of Lot,
avoiding people who do not leave according to Islam, marrying when this does not
harm anyone and so on. (OnIslam 2007).
Moreover, homosexuality is described as coming mostly from the Western
world, which is depicted as “immoral”, compared to the Islamic world, whose purity is assumed. Indeed, when looking at the past, the Graeco-Roman world was considered responsible for the spread of homoerotic relations, while nowadays the
United States and Western Europe are considered to be the cause for the “spread”
of homosexuality. In an article on the Ma(allat al-Azhar, the magazine of the most
important religious institution in the Sunni world, entitled “Wara/at Qawm L')”
(the heirs of the people of Lot), the author claims that “after many centuries the
heirs of the people of Lot have appeared, and they heavily influence American
politics” (Taq% al-D%n 2007: 1168) and also that “homosexuals represent an electoral force in the American society” (Ibid.: 1167). One muft& also states that homosexuality “finds a great resort and refuge in Western countries where it is accepted
and legalized by the laws of these countries that put man in a position even worse
than animals under the pretext of protecting human rights”(OnIslam 2004a). This
human rights argument is quite interesting, as it recalls what ‘Umar &alab%, the
Egyptian representative at the United Nations Council on Human Rights recently
declared: “Finally, concerning the highly controversial notion of sexual orientation,
we can only reiterate that it is not part of the universally recognized human rights.
We call on Mr Kiai [UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of peaceful assembly and
association] not to undermine the credibility and legitimacy of his important work
in the eyes of real people who actually need it, especially in regions where such
concepts are rejected by both its Christian and Muslim inhabitants like the Middle
East”.20 This confirms that anti-homosexuality rhetoric is not confined to religious
sources but is represented also in other kind of cultural productions, including state
institutional discourse.
To summarize, we can state that in the religious discourse homosexuality is approached as a behavioral issue that is depicted as being contrary to Islamic principles. Nevertheless, even though this discourse is dominant, this does not mean that
there are no other competitive discourses which are emerging, which depict homosexuality as an issue of sexual identity and which base their activities on the idea
that homosexuals should be protected from social and legal discrimination in the
broader field of human rights, something which is in contrast refused in the religious discourse.
The new approach to homosexuality: competitive discourses emerging
20
A
registration
of
his
position
can
be
found
here:
http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/webcast/2012/06/egypt-clustered-id-on-freedom-of-assembly-andcountering-terrorism-7th-meeting.html.
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Just to give an example of how the “new” approach to homosexuality, based on
sexual identities, and the “old”, based on sexual acts, meet, it is useful to mention a
fatw! of Ibn al-Muna--id, an important Saudi scholar. This fatw! has been published in his website Islam Question and Answers, which is well known all over the
Islamic world.
A homosexual mustaft& asked: “We homosexuals are disgraced in Islam and
have very limited options, we cannot marry like normal people, what is our fault?
And what should we do? What is the wisdom behind us being created homosexuals? If you care about our matter and suffering tell us what shall we do?” The mufti
replied: “What we are really shocked by is what you say after that: “Is it our fault
that we are like that? What is the wisdom behind a man being created like this?”
Yes, O slave of Allaah, the blame and consequences, the threat and punishment, all
befall the one who commits the sin; he deserves it because of the evil acts that he
has done and what his hands have earned”[Italics are mine].21
It is clear that here we see these two different approaches coming into contact:
the mustaft& is speaking about homosexuality as a sexual identity; the muft& is
speaking of liw!#, of a sexual act, a “sin”, that a person “commits”. Clearly, this
approach represents an element of continuity with a traditional epistemology of
sexuality based on acts. The “new” approach to homosexuality, which is represented by the mustaft& and the “old” approach, which is represented by the mufti are not
isolated, but they influence each other. The mustaft& is asking questions on homosexuality, so he is forcing the muft& to reply to these questions. In this sense he is
spreading a competitive discourse, which is not only “dominated”, to quote Foucault, but which has also a certain amount of agency, as long as it is anyway challenging the dominant discourse. The muft& is therefore forced to deal with the argument, but he has to look at sources that do not deal with homosexuality. He is
forcing a revision of the Qur’an, the Sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, the books
of former Muslims jurists that only deal with homosexual acts. The mustaft&s must
also be influenced by the religious discourse: on a personal level, we can infer the
disappointment of the mustaft& who asked for this fatw!. On a more general level,
the presence of a dominant anti-homosexuality discourse has made the LGBT
community look for more underground yet still effective means of resistance.
The emergence of these means of resistance is demonstrated by the appearance
of LGBT communities, like the recent case of Bedayaa in Egypt shows. Bedayaa is
an organization established on July 14th 2010 in order to “promote acceptance of
homosexuality in Egypt and Sudan and to help LGBTQI22 community members to
live a life free of discrimination or stigma”.23 The organization has a board and two
executive committees, one in Sudan and one in Egypt, and many volunteers. It has
five objectives: “1 – To provide psychological support & counselling services to
Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Queer, and Transgender people in the Nile Valley Area,
Egypt and Sudan. 2 – To provide sex and health education 3 – To provide outreach
21
Ibn al-Muna--id. No date. He is homosexual
http://islamqa.info/en/ref/101169 (accessed March 2014).
22
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, queer, intersexual.
23
and
is
afraid
e-mail message to author by a member of the organization, March 3, 2014.
83
to
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services and legal advice. 4 – To promote acceptance and normalization of homosexuality in our society and advocate the abolition of laws that criminalize it – directly or indirectly – in Egypt and Sudan. 5 – To communicate with other Individuals, organizations and associations to support the rights of Gay, Lesbians, Bisexuals, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex people worldwide”.24 This organization is
trying to create awareness and aims to enforce social acceptance and personal security through education, training and capacity building.
Bedayaa organizes several activities, such as support group meetings, movie
nights, training and capacity building workshops. Moreover, it distributes questionnaires and surveys to assist the community’s needs and to document human
rights violations against LGBT community members, and performs sexual awareness campaigns. The organization does not have headquarters, it mostly works underground, and it is especially active on social networks, with a website
(www.bedayaa.webs.com), an account on facebook (www.facebook.com/Bedayaa)
and one on Twitter (www.twitter.com/bedayaa), where articles, caricatures, regular
news, radio programs are published. Moreover, the organization has published
many statements on different events such as the World AIDS Day, the International
Day of Human Rights, the anniversary of the Egyptian revolution of January 25th.
It annually celebrates International Women’s Day, the International Day against
Homophobia and Transphobia on May 17th25 the anniversary of the Queen Boat
case on May 11th, the anniversary of the establishment of Bedayaa on July 14th.26
Obviously its discourse is radically different from the religious one. The first
difference is in the idea that being homosexual is a state of sexual identity, not a
case of simply committing homosexual acts. Moreover, the association is struggling to ensure the abolishment of article 9c of law 10/1961, which criminalizes
habitual masculine prostitution, and which is used to criminalize consensual homosexual intercourse between males,27 something which in the religious discourse
would appear as an attempt to legitimize something that God forbids. Moreover, as
reported by Bedayya, their members are in regular contact and networking with
many local LGBT organizations such as ,elem, Meem, Asw!t, Al-Qaws, KifKif,
Ab+ Nuw!s.
This approach is also present in other organizations like, for example ,elem,
which is
a non-governmental organization (NGO) that is dedicated to the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) community in Lebanon. It is the first, and only, above-ground NGO,
with a legally existing status that is devoted to this population in the MENA region (Lara
Dabaghi, Alena Mack, and Doris Jaalouk 2008: 6).
The organization strives to raise awareness among the general population in
Lebanon about the situation of the LGBT community, and seeks to abolish Article
534 of the Lebanese Penal Code, which criminalizes “any sexual act against na24
Ibidem.
25
The International Day against Homophobia is celebrated on May 17th to recall the date the World
Health Organization decided to declassify homosexuality as a mental disorder on May17th 1990.
26
27
Personal e-mail message to author by a member of the organization March 3rd, 2014.
To read more on the law and its history, see Tolino 2013: 167-212.
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ture” ($il!f al- #ab&'a) with imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year”.28
This organization clearly approaches homosexuality as a sexual identity. As reported by one of its founders: “It’s not only about lifestyle”. He also continues affirming that: “People do not choose to identify with a criminal identity. Declaring a
sexual preference that does not conform to imposed norms is an act of defiance
against existing structures of oppression. We criminalize ourselves and reject the
crime at the same time” (Makarem 2011: 101).
Lebanon is certainly the Arab country where the LGBT movement is strongest.
The gay community made its first steps on the internet, as occurred in Egypt, with
the creation of discussion lists and websites for online dating at the end of the
1990s. Later that “virtual” community started organizing events, like film clubs,
visual performances and exhibitions that allowed the LGBT community to have
their first meetings. In 1999 Club Free was founded: it was a small movement of
activists, originally formed with the aim of organizing social and cultural events
that allowed the homosexual community to gather. Some members of Club Free
founded ,elem (Ghassan Makarem 2011: 102) in 2004 whose headquarters has
been located in the Zico House cultural centre since then. The organization created
a social centre, publishes a monthly newsletter and a trimestral magazine, distributes educational material and supports research in legal, social and medical fields,
and organizes events on the International Day against Homophobia. It has continuous contacts with a number of other organizations, such as Meem, “a community of
lesbian, bisexual, queer women and transgender people (including both male-tofemale and female-to- male), in addition to women questioning their sexual orientation or gender identity in Lebanon”, or Nasawiya, a women's collective. This
movement is deeply rooted in Lebanon, as the organization of local activities
shows. A part from the social aspect, its local political activism is also strong. Just
to give one example, Lebanese refugees used its headquarters during the IsraeliLebanon war in 2006 (Makarem 2011: 108). On the other hand, the organization
strives to represent itself as a member of the international LGBT community. For
example in July 2006, “HELEM addressed a section of the international LGBT
community via video at the opening of a conference that kicked off the OutGames
in Montreal” (Makarem 2011: 109).
On the local level, this organization is also having a strong impact on Lebanese
society: the competitive discourse it contributed in spreading has had an influence
even on the judicial sphere, with two verdicts maintaining that article 534 does not
refer to homosexuality. In the first case a judge said that consensual homosexual
relations were not against nature and could therefore not be prosecuted under Arti28
1997. Q!n+n al-‘uq+b!t al-mu‘addal, Bayr't: al-Mu’assasa al-#ad%/a li’l-kit"b. Article 534 is a
consequence of the promulgation of a law passed in France August 6th, 1942, during the Vichy regime, at the time of the French protectorate in Lebanon, which changed art. 334 of the French Criminal Code and was then also adopted in Lebanon. The article was modified as follows: “Sera puni d’un
emprisonnement de six mois à trois ans et d’une amende de 2000 francs à 6000 francs quiconque aura
soit pour satisfaire les passions d’autrui, excité, favorisé ou facilité habituellement la débauche ou la
corruption de la jeunesse de l’un ou de l’autre sexe au-dessous de vingt et un ans, soit pour satisfaire
ses propres passions, commis un ou plusieurs actes impudiques ou contre nature avec un mineur de
son sexe âgé de moins de vingt et un ans”. It was intended to protect the minors, but its application
was then extended to all categories of “unnatural” intercourse.
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cle 534, as “Man is part of nature and is one of its elements, so it cannot be said
that any one of his practices or any one of his behaviours goes against nature, even
if it is criminal behaviour” (Ma#kamat al-Batr'n 2009: 1). In a more recent case,
the defendant, born with incomplete genitalia, and described as male on her personal status registry, was persecuted for having sex with a male. The judge ruled
that article 534 did not provide a clear interpretation of what was considered unnatural and cleared the defendant (Rainey Venetia 2014).
0elem and the other LGBT movements are mostly secular, even though in some
cases they offer a different kind of support to religious people, in order to make it
easier to reconcile their homosexuality with their Muslim identity. We can infer
that this movement does not have a direct impact on religious discourse, but the
contrary is the case: the emergence of an anti-homosexuality rhetoric is also a
counter-reaction to the emergence of homosexual identities. When groups claim
that LGBT rights are human rights, and that being homosexual is an issue of identity and not of sexual acts, they contributes to a backlash which creates a dominant
discourse that describes them as perverse. The need to state that homosexuality is
incompatible with Islam started being felt only after the emergence of a homosexual identity in the Middle East.
Indeed, these groups confirm the emergence of a “homosexual” identity in the
Middle East. Obviously the local differences between the groups, but also between
the sexual identities, should not be underestimated, like their variability, because as
Makarem points out: “Social identities are not fixed” (Ghassan Makarem 2011:
101). For example the gay community in Lebanon is much more visible and organized than in Egypt, where it is mostly underground. This is due to several reasons,
like the fact that Lebanon, given its history and its being composed by several religious and cultural minorities, is more ready to deal with minorities. Another reason
could be that the country is much more liberal for what regards sexuality, but also
the fact that in Lebanon the LGBT movement advanced from the virtual sphere to
the real sphere in the same period in which in Egypt the gay community was experiencing the Queen Boat case and similar cases of repression.
On the other hand, the religious, cultural and linguistic spheres have many elements in common, which is confirmed by the attempt to create a network of Middle
Eastern associations. In any case, what is striking is that something is changing in
the Middle East in this field, and the emergence of new sexual identities cannot be
denied. Therefore, it is undeniably possible to speak about homosexuality in the
Middle East, at least in the contemporary world.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we can say that in the Middle East two representations of homosexuality currently coexist: one representation, which is more traditional, approaches homosexuality as an issue of homosexual acts, while the other defines
homosexuality as a sexual identity and stresses emotional components.
Consequently, when we look at the contemporary Middle East we can use the
category of homosexuality provided that we are careful and avoid any risk of es-
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sentialism. Within this category there are, of course, different nuances and definitions, as the Egyptian and Lebanese cases show.
According to the religious discourse, homosexuality is not an issue of sexual
identity, but still an issue of sexual acts that the believer should not practice in order not to be punished by God in this life (with sexually transmitted diseases) or in
the Hereafter. This discourse is dominant and it is represented not only in religious
sources, but also in other kinds of sources, like newspapers, other media and even
in the legal and institutional field. However, other forms of discourses are also
emerging, and we could define them as competitive discourses. In fatw!s they arise
each time a mustaft& asks a question about homosexuality and the muft& replies
speaking about homosexual acts. They also meet indirectly because the emergence
of a homosexual identity has had the consequence of creating and spreading an anti-homosexuality discourse which is especially represented in the religious literature. Therefore we can state that competitive discourses are not only “dominated”
discourses, to quote Foucault (Foucault 1979: 100), but they have the potential to
challenge and therefore change the dominant discourse.
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91
Sull’orlo
di
S!r! R!i
Il testo che segue è la traduzione dello scritto di S!r! R!i, Kag!r par, in
Biy!ban me", R!jkamal Prak!"an (Nay# Dill# 2005, pp. 69-91). S!r! R!i è nata nel
1956 e vive ad Allahabad, dove dirige la Munshi Premchand Memorial School,
traduce e scrive. Ha pubblicato due raccolte di racconti (Abab#l k# u!!n e Biy!ban
me") e un romanzo (C#l v!l# ko$h#), apparsi presso R!jkamal Prak!"an. Ha curato e
tradotto dalla lingua hindi in inglese due antologie di racconti, The Golden WaistChain (Penguin India) e Hindi (Katha); inoltre ha co-curato con GJV Prasad
un’altra antologia, Imaging the Other (Katha).
La traduzione è di Alessandra Consolaro1.
Verso le otto di una nebbiosa sera di gennaio, sulla stradina di fianco alla chiesa
che va verso Haus Khas Village due sagome confuse giunsero sotto un lampione e
si fermarono. Faceva un freddo terribile. Certo, era il periodo più freddo dell’anno,
però nell’aria c’era un gelo particolare. Anche una nebbia così fitta era inusuale. I
cumuli di nebbia si staccavano dalla luce e danzavano come enormi elefanti bianchi fatti di fumo che cozzassero gli uni con gli altri. Per il nebbione c’era pochissimo traffico per strada. Ogni tanto un’automobile veniva avanti a velocità ridotta
con i fari lampeggianti come spettrali occhi smorti. L’odore soffocante dei gas di
scarico attaccava in gola nell’umidità della nebbia.
Giunte sotto il lampione, le sagome sfuocate divennero nette, come fossero salite su un palcoscenico, sotto un riflettore. Erano due uomini: uno era un ragazzino,
l’altro aveva l’età in cui comincia il declino. Entrambi erano intirizziti e indossavano abiti pesanti.
“Mi sembrava di essere in ritardo, invece anche tu sei arrivato adesso!” disse
Manoranjan. Mentre parlava dalla sua bocca uscì un cerchio di fumo, quasi che le
sue parole, oltre che un suono, avessero anche preso forma.
1
Ringrazio Johanna Hahn che al DOT2013 di Münster mi ha segnalato questo racconto, di cui ha curato la traduzione tedesca (Johanna Hahn, In der Wildnis. Kommentierte Übersetzung und Interpretation moderner Hindi-Kurzgeschichten von Sara Rai. Regiospectra Verlag, Berlin 2013, pp. 31-55).
Ringrazio Sara Rai per la sua squisita disponibilità: questa traduzione è stata resa possibile solo grazie
alla sollecitudine con cui mi ha inviato una copia del testo, irreperibile perché fuori catalogo.
© DEP
ISSN 1824 - 4483
Sara Rai
DEP n. 25 / 2014
“Hai portato i soldi?” chiese Javed. Il suo volto infantile portava i segni della
preoccupazione. Aveva gli zigomi gonfi e le palpebre scure brillavano come se si
fosse truccato. La sua voce era acuta come una lama.
Manoranjan estrasse un rotolo di banconote dalla tasca della sua giacca a vento
e glielo porse.
“Ho fatto una gran fatica a trovarli, ho promesso ad Akhilesh che glieli restituirò tra una settimana”
“Beh, ridaglieli allora!” Javed si mise a contare i soldi, poi spazientito piantò lì
a metà e si mise il rotolo in tasca.
“Te l’ho detto, no? Appena arrivo ti spedisco i soldi,” disse Javed ostentando
indifferenza, guardando in faccia Manoranjan.
“Allora vai proprio via?”
“Domani parto per Bombay”
“Che fretta c’è?”
“Sai bene che me la sono cavata per un pelo dopo l’interrogatorio della polizia,
e me lo chiedi?”
“Ma allora è vero che con quella ragazza…?”
“Ecco, cominci anche tu a dubitare di me. Quante volte te lo devo ripetere che
non guardo nemmeno le ragazze… E poi, una schifezza del genere…”. La rabbia
brillò proprio come un lampo nel buio dei suoi occhi, ma subito riprese il controllo
di sé.
“Insomma, voglio solo andarmene via di qua per qualche tempo”, disse titubante.
“Allora giuramelo”. Manoranjan era arrossito.
“Io ti amo, davvero!” Tutt’a un tratto Javed si protese e prese le mani di Manoranjan fra le sue. Nonostante il freddo Manoranjan sentì che erano appiccicose di
sudore. Si chinò a sfiorare i capelli di Javed con le sue labbra, e cominciò a baciare
teneramente i suoi capelli.
“Beh, adesso devo andare!”, disse Javed, “Tornerò presto. Vedrai, fra un po’
tutta ’sta storia si sgonfierà… del resto, visto che non ho fatto niente, di che dovrei
aver paura?”
“Ma che cosa farai a Bombay? Come camperai? Dove starai?” chiese Manoranjan con apprensione.
“In un modo o l’altro ce la farò. È questione di poco tempo”. Strinse leggermente le mani di Manoranjan e svanì nella nebbia. Un attimo prima era là e un istante
dopo era sparito, come se la nebbia fosse un demone che lo aveva ingoiato.
Erano passati nove mesi da quella sera e di Javed non era giunta alcuna notizia.
Nove mesi e sei giorni, che Manoranjan aveva contato dapprima con speranza, poi
con costernazione, e infine con sfiducia, e durante i quali il ricordo di Javed aveva
continuato a crescere dentro di lui come una nuova vita. Si ritrovava spesso a pensare a Javed. Altro che restituire i soldi… non aveva nemmeno scritto una lettera;
assolutamente niente! Che cosa gli era capitato? Manoranjan era in un dilemma.
Tra sé e sé aveva ripetutamente esaminato i minimi dettagli, ogni singola mossa di
Javed. Sapeva che si trattava solo della sua immaginazione, che forse non aveva
nessuna connessione con il vero Javed, ma gli sembrava di poter trarre qualche
gioia, qualche consolazione solo da questo pensiero.
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Poi un giorno arrivò improvvisamente la sua telefonata: “Possiamo vederci domani sera?”. Così, come se si fossero incontrati la sera prima. Mentre per Manoranjan dopo così tanto tempo la speranza di ritrovarsi era scemata. Chissà quando era
tornato e dove era stato tutto quel tempo. Ma era difficile scoprire qualcosa a riguardo. E poi, la sua voce, morbida come la seta, ma dietro quella morbidezza era
nascosta una durezza disumana, che a sentirla a Manoranjan tremavano le ginocchia… aveva un potere misterioso su Manoranjan. Se pensava ai suoi sguardi, ai
gesti, ai sorrisi – il linguaggio muto tra di loro –gli venivano i brividi.
Restò sveglio tutta la notte. Si addormentò per un attimo, e gli sembrava di essere circondato da foglie, foglie e foglie che cadevano da un alto albero dalla grande chioma, fluttuavano nell’aria, ondeggiavano, frusciavano e lo ricoprivano completamente. Si svegliò, bruciando per l’ardente desiderio di quelle foglie lucenti.
Era appena calata la notte. Nel silenzio in lontananza giungeva il guaito di un cane.
Si immaginò la palla di una luna piena appesa ai rami spogli di un semal, l’albero
del cotone rosso, con sotto un cane che ululava con la testa levata in alto. Provò
un’improvvisa paura e accese la luce sul comodino di fianco al letto. Immediatamente nella stanza si diffuse una luce rassicurante e il latrato del cane si contrasse
nell’altro buio, quello del mondo esterno. Guardò l’ora e scoprì che erano solo le
due e mezza. Lo sommerse un’ondata di stanchezza, come se avesse passato una
vita intera a guardare l’orologio.
Nel preciso istante in cui si era risvegliato dal sonno – in realtà non si era davvero addormentato, era nel tragitto di risveglio da quel dormiveglia – gli venne in
mente che quella sera avrebbe dovuto incontrare Javed e fu sopraffatto da un attacco d’ansia. La sera, come una maliarda vestita di lustrini, lo adescava con fare civettuolo, e lui tirò fuori dallo scrigno del suo petto, dove lo aveva rinchiuso per custodirlo, il pensiero di quella sera, e lo scrutò a fondo, come se tenesse in mano una
carta da gioco che avrebbe deciso la sua vita, a seconda che la giocasse bene o male. Spense la luce e sprofondò in un sonno agitato, dal quale si svegliò quando udì
lo sferragliare del primo bus e scoprì che la luce dell’alba era ormai entrata nella
stanza.
Si alzò e uscì sulla terrazza dello studio che si trovava al terzo piano. Si era fatto
molto tardi, perciò non era tornato a casa ma aveva dormito là. Aveva pensato di
completare lo studio sui cantanti Baul su cui stava lavorando da qualche giorno, ma
si sentiva inquieto e non era riuscito a lavorare. Sul tetto c’era vento. Andò vicino
al parapetto sul bordo del tetto. Provò quasi l’emozione di volare via col vento.
Gettò lo sguardo lontano, come un sovrano che dall’alto del suo forte ispezioni
l’intero suo regno. Davanti a lui si aprì la mappa intera di Delhi. In lontananza, in
mezzo al caos delle case squadrate come innumerevoli scatole vuote, assopiti nello
smog, gli edifici noti: l’Ashok Hotel, l’India Gate, il Rashtrapati Bhawan. I suoi
capelli lisci nel vento si erano rizzati e improvvisamente lo straccio bianco appeso
al filo cominciò a sbattere malamente, come un’anima inquieta che si contorce per
liberarsi dalla rete di Maya. Si mise a canticchiare tra sé una canzone da film che,
trasformatasi in un fischio sulle sue labbra, cominciò a fluttuare su tutta Delhi: Bekarar dil, tu gae ja! Cuore irrequieto, canta con me!
Impaziente rientrò nella stanza, e tirò fuori dall’armadio una grossa scatola di
plastica nella quale teneva un lehenga e una blusa shaluka che si era fatto cucire da
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Banne Master. Tolse l’ampia gonna e la osservò attentamente, poi l’infilò dalla testa, la tirò giù fino alla vita e allacciò con destrezza il cordone di seta facendo un
laccio a forma di fiore. Poi indossò la blusa calcandola un po’ dalla testa, e la sistemò meticolosamente: Banne Master aveva fatto lo scollo troppo stretto. Manoranjan era rimasto un’eternità in quella scatoletta di negozio puzzolente di cherosene, assicurando che la camicetta era per una sua amica che viveva all’estero e che
era “abbondante”, ma quello aveva tagliato lo scollo troppo stretto. E come se non
bastasse, a sentir menzionare la sua “amica” aveva represso un sorriso sprezzante,
che Manoranjan però aveva notato. Vabbè, ormai queste idiozie non facevano alcun effetto a Manoranjan. All’inizio si arrabbiava, ma adesso questo tipo di emozioni gli sembravano assurde, e riteneva stupido perderci del tempo.
Lui stesso, molti anni prima, quando frequentava la nona o la decima classe,
aveva notato che invece di appassionarsi al cricket o al football come i suoi compagni di classe, il suo interesse andava ai vestiti da donna e ai trucchi. Fu allora che
questa inconfessabile verità si era ingrandita dentro di lui come un sole nascente. A
quel tempo lui nascondeva, custodiva dentro di sé la ragazza che c’era in lui, come
fosse un fragile oggetto di vetro che si sarebbe potuto rompere per un nonnulla.
Nonostante lo nascondesse, sua mamma sospettava, e quando tornava dal convitto
per le vacanze, lei lo esortava in continuazione “Manu, va’ fuori, non vedi che i
tuoi amici stanno giocando a cricket? Su, va’ a giocare anche tu! O adesso verrà
qualcuno a chiamarti!” Ma nessuno veniva mai a chiamarlo. Tanto per cominciare,
era una schiappa a giocare. Ovvio, aveva giocato a cricket solo un paio di volte, e
controvoglia. E di conseguenza la squadra in cui giocava lui perdeva sempre. Alcuni pensavano che fosse un portaiella. E anche se non avesse portato sfortuna,
comunque i ragazzi del quartiere lo ritenevano un tipo ‘strano’.
Così, anche se il pallone rosso nuovo e la mazza da cricket di salice per lui non
avevano assolutamente nulla di interessante, sua mamma glieli regalava quasi a
forza, con la speranza che si mettesse a giocare a giochi da maschio. Ma no. Lui
non aveva interesse per i giochi da maschio, ma per i maschi. Quando loro giocavano lui si andava a sedere sulla panchina di pietra ai bordi del campetto e li stava
a guardare. Tutti quei corpi giovani e muscolosi lo attraevano tantissimo. A vedere
lo splendore di braccia e gambe, le linee equilibrate e i capelli madidi di sudore nel
sole calante della sera, restava incantato.
Il filo dei pensieri lo riportò indietro all’epoca del convitto, che gli sembrò remota e irreale come se fosse avvenuta in un’altra vita. Ripassò a uno a uno nella
memoria tutti i suoi compagni di quel tempo: Rajan, Bilu, Tanvir dalle belle dita,
che faceva anche dei bei quadri, Mukesh e quel ragazzo con un grosso neo sulla
guancia di cui non ricordava più il nome. E poi gli comparve davanti il volto scanzonato di Mohsin, e i suoi occhi. Mohsin, che era morto di cancro così giovane. Gli
tornò alla mente quella notte nella stanza del convitto quando, per salvarsi
dall’accusa di codardia, si era sdraiato sul letto a pancia nuda e gli balenò ancora
davanti agli occhi dopo tutti quegli anni il coltello che Mohsin aveva in mano:
com’era affilato!
La lama aveva sfiorato la superficie della pelle e si era allontanata e, con una
sorta di avvincente orrore, Manoranjan aveva visto una collana di rubini crescere
sulla sua pancia. Tutti i ragazzi scapparono via e il ‘sergente’ picchiò Mohsin con
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un bastone. Questo incidente ebbe una strana influenza su Manoranjan, perché in
seguito a ciò, invece di provare antipatia per Mohsin, o paura, in un certo senso la
sua attrazione verso di lui si accentuò. Come fosse un magnete. E poi quelle notti
della nuova giovinezza: mani, braccia, pelle, quel cercarsi di corpi nel buio, sudore,
appiccicoso avvinghiarsi. Ricordandosi di Mohsin dopo tutti quegli anni gli sembrò
che fra Mohsin e Javed ci fosse certamente una qualche somiglianza: la stessa mescolanza di indifferenza e crudeltà, la stessa lama tagliente?
Brancolando alla ricerca di una via di uscita, sbucò fuori finalmente dalla nebbia del passato. Appoggiò sulle spalle della blusa intonata al lehenga una sciarpina
ricamata, passandola attorno al collo. Di colpo provò una sensazione di piacere improvvisa, come oro sciolto che fluisse bagnato. Con affetto, quasi con meraviglia,
passò le dita lunghe e sottili sulla lunga gonna di seta assaporandone il tocco morbido e fresco. Poi fece due passi indietro e osservò il suo aspetto nel grande specchio della porta. Nell’opacità dello specchio il bagliore di una lingua di fuoco si
fermò nei suoi occhi. Per un attimo gli sembrò che dalla rossa vampa della gonna si
sprigionasse calore, eppure al tatto c’era un freddo vellutato.
Lo sguardo della figura che appariva nello specchio emenava fiamme. Questo
fuoco sarebbe mai stato soddisfatto? Il cuore di Manoranjan prese a palpitare. Pensò a Javed, si guardò con gli occhi di lui, socchiuse gli occhi e sulle sue labbra giocherellò un sorriso che disegnò sulle sue guance due profonde fossette. Si tolse la
gonna ricamata d’oro, la piegò e la ripose nella scatola, poi la rinchiuse
nell’armadio. Se l’avesse lasciata in giro per la casa di sicuro sarebbe finita nelle
mani di sua madre, e allora di nuovo questa verità negata sarebbe rimasta sospesa
fra loro due come una storia incompiuta, e fra loro due sarebbe ripreso per
l’ennesima volta il gioco di comportarsi da estranei.
Si avvicinò alla scrivania, si sedette e scrisse più volte il proprio nome, con caratteri di forme diverse: Manoranjan Kumar Gupta. Lettere belle, ben tracciate, un
po’ arrotondate, che erano un po’ inclinate una dietro l’altra verso destra, come impazienti di incontrarsi, e che si incisero nel suo cuore con tutta la loro essenza. Lo
stesso pensiero fugacemente gli tornò in mente: “Ma Javed aveva il suo nome inciso nel cuore?” Sì, no, sì, no sì. Contando velocemente sulle dita, quasi distrattamente si fermò sul sì, e di colpo lo invase, come un’ondata, l’inquietudine. Estrasse
dalla tasca anteriore della blusa una lettera sgualcita che aveva scritto qualche giorno dopo la partenza di Javed, sapendo perfettamente che non l’avrebbe mai spedita.
Perché aveva scritto quella lettera? Per se stesso? L’aveva già letta mille volte. La
lesse ancora una volta.
“Mio caro Javed,
in questo momento probabilmente sarai su Marine Drive, sulla riva del mare i
lampioni saranno illuminati, e io voglio dirti che il mio cuore è completamente
buio. Tu non sei tornato e non è arrivata nemmeno una tua lettera, ma io continuo a
pensare a te. So che non mi scriverai. Per questo ho scritto il tuo nome su questo
foglio, per poterlo tenere stretto al mio petto. Se nel tuo cuore c’è un posticino per
me tornerai senz’altro. Ti aspetterò ogni giorno.
Il tuo Manoranjan”
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Mentre leggeva la lettera lo sguardo gli cadde sul suo braccio. Braccio forte, da
uomo, coperto di spessi peli scuri, e sul quale si vedeva il muscolo ben tornito. Di
colpo la donna che viveva dentro di lui si perse d’animo e un noto sconforto cominciò a stringerlo nella sua morsa. Come era già successo in altre occasioni simili,
appena prese coscienza del suo essere un maschio maledisse il suo destino e biasimò l’ingiustizia che aveva rinchiuso nel forte corpo di un giovane uomo il palpitante cuore di una donna. Prigioniero per sempre. Nel contesto della sua vita questo
‘sempre’ gli sembrò infinito, insormontabile, esteso fin oltre l’orizzonte. E al pensiero di essere prigioniero sentì le fredde sbarre che lo circondavano, il crudele tocco del ferro e il suo odore. L’odore del sangue. Ma il suo sangue era diverso da
quello dell’altra gente? Perché la natura aveva scelto lui, lo aveva fatto diverso dagli altri, perché camminasse sul sentiero solitario dei suoi desideri irraggiungibili?
Perché? Il suo destino, la sua prigione era proprio amare non le donne ma le persone uguali a sé. Lui poteva esprimere le sue emozioni, poteva amare solo di nascosto
dagli sguardi altrui. Prigioniero rinchiuso nella sua esistenza, che osserva il mondo
esterno dalle aperture degli occhi. Provò un dolore profondo, e lo sforzo tremendo
di resistere a quella ferita lo fece tremare.
Nella famiglia di Manoranjan da parecchie generazioni non nascevano bambine,
e sua madre, che aveva già due maschi, aveva pregato di avere una femmina. Come
in uno scontro fra la preghiera e la natura era nato lui, Manoranjan. Un corpo da
maschio con un’anima da femmina. Era un errore della natura? No, lui era arrivato
proprio in risposta alle preghiere, in modo speciale! Ripeté con forza: speciale! Si
alzò di colpo, sull’orlo della rabbia, fece a pezzi la lettera, gettò giù dal tetto i
frammenti e restò a guardarli mentre volteggiavano verso il basso.
In quel periodo passava la maggior parte del tempo a dipingere. Veniva la mattina alle otto in questo attico di Green Park che Akilesh aveva affittato per lui, che
lo usasse come studio, e si metteva al lavoro. Akilesh era il suo fratello minore, e
lavorava da Larsen & Toubro. Conscio della precaria situazione economica di Manoranjan, spesso gli dava una mano. Fin dall’inizio Akhilesh diceva sempre che
Manu non aveva nessun senso del lavoro o degli affari.
Anzi, in generale manifestava scarso talento per vivere. Nelle situazioni di difficoltà si dava per vinto facilmente. I negozianti gli rifilavano la merce vecchia e costosa; se andava a comprare frutta e verdura il fruttivendolo lo fregava sul resto, e
anche i suoi amici dell’università si prendevano gioco di lui facendolo passare per
scemo. Non che lui fosse scemo per davvero. Solamente, la sua timidezza e ingenuità creavano l’impressione che fosse stupido. Era assolutamente inadatto al lavoro. Quando stava imparando a guidare la macchina, gli sembrava che tutti i lampioni ai bordi delle strade si precipitassero contro di lui e si bloccava nel bel mezzo
del traffico.
I suoi genitori erano preoccupati per lui. Fin da bambino se ne stava separato, in
disparte. Non legava con nessuno, quando tornava dal convitto per le vacanze se ne
stava seduto tutto il giorno al bordo del campetto dietro casa pieno di erbacce secche e di polvere, e disegnava sul suo quadernetto degli schizzi tutto smozzicato. I
suoi disegni non avevano un tema particolare. Una volta sua madre, la signora
Gupta, aveva guardato concitatamente quel quadernetto mentre lui non c’era, ma la
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meno uno di donna. Su ogni pagina c’erano uomini diversi, con gambe e braccia
disegnate per bene, e spesso anche le parti interne dei corpi, cioè le ossa, le vene, i
muscoli, eccetera, erano disegnati accuratamente. Alcuni disegni mostravano Superman o Batman con indosso vesti d’acciaio, impegnati in una feroce lotta. Ogni
tanto ai lati dei disegni c’erano anche delle nuvolette con scritto qualcosa. Mrs.
Gupta era arrivata alla conclusione che il ragazzo leggesse troppi fumetti. Aveva
ormai riempito molti quaderni di schizzi e nell’intermezzo fra un quaderno e l’altro
utilizzava qualunque pezzo di carta buona o usata, o disegnava sui giornali vecchi o
sul retro dei calendari. Era come ossessionato da questa attività, oltre a ciò non faceva assolutamente nulla.
Una volta cresciuto, la situazione rimase identica e ben presto fu chiaro che non
era buono per nessun lavoro. Dormiva fino a tardi e quando si alzava ecco, di nuovo quel quaderno di schizzi e la matita masticata. Aveva cambiato tecnica di pittura. Prendendo dei libri da chissà dove, aveva studiato la tecnica di pittura a olio e si
era messo a fare quadri, dapprima su carta oleata, poi, grazie all’aiuto di Akhilesh,
su tela. I quadri si ammucchiavano senza sosta nel piccolo appartamento della signora Gupta, e allora ad Akhilesh venne l’idea dello studio e Manoranjan trasferì là
il suo atelier.
Nei suoi quadri c’erano ancora figure maschili, ma da qualche tempo gli era venuta la mania degli alberi. Alberi vecchi e grandi, senza foglie, con i rami che tagliavano fuori il cielo. A volte sotto gli alberi c’erano uomini seduti a testa china.
In un quadro si vedevano due foglie secche a forma di cuori gialli, staccatesi da un
alto albero, fluttuare nell’aria. Il quadro dava l’impressione di un profondo silenzio.
Si intitolava “Pensiero”. Come se gli fosse cresciuto un albero nella fantasia, che si
estendeva su ogni quadro. Aveva letto da qualche parte del kalpavriksha, l’albero
mitologico della tradizione hindu, e da allora aveva cercato a lungo di rappresentarlo. L’“albero dei desideri” ti dà tutto ciò che chiedi.
Con l’adolescenza gli era venuta un’altra mania, che era fonte di preoccupazione costante per i suoi famigliari. Spesso, quando rientrava da fuori, era accompagnato da qualche ragazzo che lui presentava come suo amico. In sé questa non era
una cosa preoccupante. Anzi, era bene che facesse amicizie. Ma i genitori borghesi
e perbene di Manoranjan avevano notato con sgomento che gli amici di loro figlio
erano regolarmente ragazzi di bassa estrazione, che li salutavano frettolosamente e
sgattaiolavano a testa bassa in camera di Manoranjan. Come se ci fosse qualcosa da
nascondere. Poi là si sentivano bisbigli e risate che a loro suonavano come un
enigma incomprensibile: Manoranjan non rideva mai così con i suoi famigliari.
Forse loro erano perfino un po’ gelosi di questa cosa. Sua madre gli chiedeva:
“Oggi eri molto contento…ridevi a crepapelle. Che è successo?”
“Ma va là, ridevo così per ridere… Quel Manoj è un vero buffone. Mi fa morire
dal ridere”.
“Ma chi è questo Manoj?”
“Suo padre è il proprietario del Chaurasia paan bhandar, il chiosco del paan
all’angolo”.
A queste parole sulle labbra della mamma corse una sottile linea di disgusto.
Ma non poteva trovare nessun altro per fare amicizia? Il fatto che gli piaccia andare
in giro con ragazzi di strada è forse segno di un senso di inferiorità che lui si porta
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dentro? Poi un giorno a Mrs. Gupta sembrò di sentire a lungo il suono di acqua
scrosciante proveniente dal bagno di Manoranjan, come se qualcuno si stesse lavando, seguito da un ridacchiare e poi un silenzio assoluto…oddio, quei due, insieme?... ma quando bussò alla porta della stanza Manoranjan l’aprì immediatamente e lei si rassicurò vedendoli entrambi là.
Proprio in quel periodo anche Javed cominciò a frequentare la loro casa in compagnia di Manoranjan. Una corporatura sottile ma ben strutturata, di statura media,
capelli cortissimi, incollati al cuoio capelluto in stile militare. “Che cosa fa Javed?”
come al solito inquisì Mrs. Gupta.
“Lavora al posto di telefono pubblico, il PCO al mercato qui sotto.”
“Beh, almeno lavora!” la mamma arricciò il naso anche quella volta. “Perché i
miei amici non ti piacciono senza che neanche li conosca?” esclamò Manoranjan
irritato.
“Si atteggia a gran signore con abiti e scarpe di gran moda!” sorrise Akhilesh.
Era vero. Javed aveva sempre camicie che sembravano nuove, senza una piega, i
pantaloni di stoffe pregiate, le scarpe lucidate. Si vedeva subito il suo gusto per le
cose di lusso. Indossava vestiti mille volte migliori delle t-shirt scolorite e dei jeans
consumati di Manoranjan.
Aveva incontrato Javed la prima volta quando si era guastato il telefono di casa.
Per telefonare si doveva andare al mercato, al PCO. Là c’era una lunga coda di
gente che doveva telefonare, dovette aspettare il suo turno per tre quarti d’ora. Seduto su una minuscola panchina, passò in rassegna la stanza, ma ben presto
l’inventario degli oggetti messi a casaccio si esaurì: registrò immediatamente nella
sua memoria di pittore la foto che c’era sul calendario, l’orologio Jayco appeso al
suo fianco non aveva altra qualità che il suo essere un orologio, e quell’uomo dentro la cabina sa dio da quanto tempo stava parlando.
Quando non gli era rimasto più niente da vedere e la noia cominciò a toccare
nuove vette, i suoi occhi si fermarono su Javed, che stava seduto al banco. Notò,
con leggera sorpresa, che ogni tratto del viso di Javed era come contrapposto
all’altro. Sotto un naso sottile labbra carnose, un po’ spregiudicate; sopraccigli
piatti, scolpiti, delimitati da ciglia folte e selvagge; sopra gli zigomi sporgenti occhi
infinitamente neri, che avevano una strana forza, che faceva venir voglia di guardare continuamente verso di loro. Nel suo insieme era un volto attraente. Lui se ne
stava là senza far nulla, come una statua, seduto al suo banco, come se il suo destino non fosse altro che stare ad aspettare.
Finalmente venne il turno di Manoranjan. Finita la telefonata, quando uscì dalla
cabina si accorse di non avere soldi con sé.
“Ho dimenticato i soldi a casa!” disse imbarazzato. “Abito proprio nel palazzo
qui di fronte. Vado a prenderli?”
“Non fa niente… probabilmente passa di qua tutti i giorni, me li porterà un’altra
volta” disse Javed senza nemmeno sollevare lo sguardo.
Il giorno dopo, quando Manoranjan venne a pagare, Javed gli disse: “Ho perso
lo scontrino… dammi quello che vuoi!”
Manoranjan gli chiese: “Tu vivi qui?”
“Sì, adesso sto qui. Però sono di Pratapgarh. Ti ho visto spesso passare qui davanti…”.
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Un giorno Manoranjan stava andando da qualche parte e notò che nel negozio
non c’era nessuno, solo Javed se ne stava a fumare una sigaretta. Spinto da un impulso aprì la porta ed entrò. Javed gli porse il telefono e lui disse: “No, non devo
telefonare. Non te l’ho detto, ma ho l’hobby di dipingere… cerco facce di ogni tipo. Se non ti dispiace io…” si interruppe come se stesse cercando le parole, poi aggiunse di corsa: “Il tuo volto… mi piace molto. Vuoi venire nel mio studio? Ti farò
un ritratto.”
Javed alzò la testa e lo guardò dritto negli occhi. Nei suoi occhi c’era un sorriso,
ma insieme anche uno sguardo beffardo: “Ah, davvero?”
“Io… io… se non te la prendi a male posso anche pagarti per questo”
Javed rimase in silenzio per qualche istante. Manoranjan lo guardava timidamente. Nell’ansia stava quasi per dirgli qualcosa quando Javed esclamò:
“Ok, ci vengo!”
Manoranjan gli spiegò come arrivare allo studio e se ne andò.
Javed prese ad andare nello studio con regolarità. Avevano concordato che sarebbe andato là nell’intervallo del pranzo, quando chiudeva il negozio. Si sarebbero
trovati a mangiare insieme al Madras Café. Di là allo studio erano due passi. Il
pranzo di Manoranjan consisteva perlopiù di due sambhar vada, ma Javed aveva
una fame da lupo. Mangiava dosa facendone dei grossi bocconi che trangugiava
avidamente; e quando Manoranjan gli chiedeva se ne volesse ancora, non diceva
mai di no. Così mangiava due, a volte tre dosa. A Manoranjan faceva piacere. Lo
trovava un segno della sua virilità. Era sempre Manoranjan a pagare, per un tacito
accordo tra i due. A questo riguardo Javed era assolutamente disinvolto e non faceva nemmeno la mossa di pagare. Dopo mangiato fumava una sigaretta e nel frattempo Manoranjan studiava il suo viso. Gli sembrava che dopo aver mangiato sul
volto di Javed si stendesse un velo di soddisfazione e ciò gli faceva piacere. Poi i
due si incamminavano verso lo studio e lì cominciava il lavoro.
Pian piano cominciarono anche a discorrere di molte cose. Un giorno Javed era
seduto su uno sgabello e Manoranjan lo stava ritraendo. Erano entrambi in silenzio.
Improvvisamente Manoranjan disse :” Sai, quel giorno che ti ho visto seduto da solo nel negozio, mi sono sentito attratto da te… come se un filo fosse teso fra noi
due… come se ci fosse una forza, fuori di me, che mi attirasse verso di te. Anche tu
hai provato qualcosa del genere?”
“Un filo? Che genere di filo?”
“Forse empatia… Forse mi era sembrato che anche tu fossi come me.. in cerca
di qualcosa che potesse allontanare la tua incompletezza? Mi è sembrato qualcosa
del genere!” Manoranjan completò la frase smettendo di dipingere.
“Non capisco questi discorsi…” disse Javed, “ma forse è proprio così, altrimenti
perché sarei venuto qui?” Mentre parlava si immerse nei suoi pensieri e il suo volto
si velò di dubbio.
Poi aggiunse: “Io non so molte cose di me e non avevo mai pensato a queste cose, come posso ribattere a queste tue affermazioni?”. Vedendo la sua esitazione,
Manoranjan tacque.
Nel giro di pochi mesi la loro amicizia si fece più stretta. Manoranjan era pazzo
di Javed, ma era difficile dire quali fossero le intenzioni di Javed verso Manoranjan, perché parlava molto poco di sé; a volte si schermiva con il sarcasmo, a volte
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rispondeva evasivamente alle domande di Manoranjan con un “Non so”. Un giorno
stavano andando dal Madras Café verso lo studio. Era una giornata strana, un momento era nuvolo e un attimo dopo splendeva il sole. Nell’azzurro del cielo stava
passando un frammento di nuvola bianca, come una lunga manica slabbrata. Manoranjan disse: “Quando ero piccolo mi sdraiavo nel campetto dietro casa e restavo a
guardare il cielo… tutto quell’azzurro! Mi sembrava che ci fossero mille strati di
azzurro e dietro di essi la casa di dio…Per me dio è il nome di quella forza che
controlla tutto l’universo, che domina anche la mia vita, che deve aver scritto il mio
destino in lettere nere nel suo librone, lassù in cielo… ci credi anche tu a questa potenza?”
Dopo un breve silenzio Javed rispose: “Ho trascorso l’infanzia in una piccola
città di provincia. Anche la nostra casa era piccola. Le sue due stanze erano sempre
in penombra. Fuori dalla casa scorreva una fogna a cielo aperto, vi si gettava anche
tutta la spazzatura del quartiere. Se si lasciava la finestra aperta la puzza di quella
schifezza entrava in casa, se la si teneva chiusa diventava completamente buio.”
“Mio papà lavorava da un fabbricante di forbici. Beveva. In genere si beveva
tutto quello che guadagnava. Noi eravamo cinque fra fratelli e sorelle, mia madre
per darci il necessario faceva lavori di sartoria e ricamo nel quartiere. La notte ci
metteva tutti coricati nell’unico letto di casa, vicini vicini, come mucchietti di carne. A volte, se la finestra restava aperta, si vedeva una pallida striscia di cielo.
Cambiava colore in continuazione: a volte era blu, oppure rosa, ma perlopiù era
bianco sporco. Anch’io a volte, come te, mi concentravo sul cielo. Per me il cielo
significava libertà, spazi aperti. Quando guardavo il cielo in piedi vicino alla finestra potevo respirare a pieni polmoni. Mi sembrava che l’ampiezza del cielo fosse
entrata dentro di me. Oh, come desideravo liberarmi da quella prigione! Era come
se da dentro me uscisse un grido. E poi, lo sai che cosa avvenne?” Si interruppe e
sul suo viso guizzò un sorriso che era quasi una smorfia.
“Quello che tu chiami dio o forza, proprio quella potenza mi ha aperto la strada
per andarmene di là. Mia madre andava sempre a cucire da una vecchia. Suo figlio
viveva a Delhi. Un giorno il figlio venne a prendere la vecchia per portarla a Delhi.
Mia madre si gettò ai suoi piedi e lo implorò di procurarmi un lavoro. Avevo
vent’anni ed ero stato bocciato due volte all’esame finale della scuola superiore,
l’Intermediate. Il figlio della vecchia aveva parecchie attività a Delhi. Il PCO dove
lavoro adesso lo aveva appena aperto e aveva bisogno di personale. Così arrivai a
Delhi… sono qui da due anni…ma quello che volevo dirti è che per me il nome di
quella potenza è il caso, l’occasione… la possibilità di lasciarsi dietro le spalle
l’amarezza della propria vita”.
Javed aveva gli occhi lucidi e dopo questo lungo discorso si zittì. Guardò intensamente Manoranjan. Manoranjan lo stava ascoltando a testa china. Aveva gli occhi fissi al pavimento, come se le parole di Javed fossero scritte sul terreno in una
grafia tale per cui non aveva modo di capire se non che leggendola.
Alla fine chiese: “Ma sei mai tornato a casa?”
“No”, rispose Javed, “Sono uscito definitivamente dalla prigione. Però ho notato una cosa. Io me ne sono andato da Pratapgarh, però ogni tanto di notte mi sveglio di colpo e mi sembra di essere in quella stanza buia, sento la puzza di quella
fogna che scorreva fuori da casa nostra.”
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“Ma che ti credevi, di poterti liberare così facilmente del tuo passato?” Manoranjan parlava a voce bassissima. “In un modo o nell’altro siamo tutti prigionieri.
Io sono condannato a non poter amare apertamente. Sono attratto dagli uomini…sono fatto così, che ci posso fare? È forse colpa mia? Per la gente qualunque è
difficilissimo capire la mia schiavitù, amare una prigione…ma io lo capisco benissimo.” Il volto di Manoranjan si era alterato in un moto di amarezza.
“Perché hai questa opinione di te? Guarda che io ti amo!”
“Dici davvero, Javed?”
Trascinati dalla conversazione nessuno dei due aveva fatto caso che camminando erano arrivati davanti all’edificio dove c’era l’attico dello studio. Davanti al portone c’era un vecchio albero di cassia, che in quel momento era in piena fioritura.
Era carico di fiori. Guardando i rami Javed, che stava sotto la pianta, vide mucchi
di fiori, teneri, splendidi, a grappoli come fossero uva dorata. Gli stessi fiori erano
sparpagliati anche per terra. Si sollevò appoggiandosi al tronco del rampicante ed
ebbe la sensazione che la vibrante energia di quei fiori gialli fosse entrata completamente dentro di lui.
“Sì”, disse a Manoranjan, “dico davvero, Manoranjan.”
“A me sembra che l’amore sia proprio una specie di prigione. Mi ricordo di mia
madre, piegata su un mucchio di stoffa nella fioca luce della nostra stanza… a volte
mi svegliavo dal sonno e la trovavo sempre a ricamare una sari o un dupatta. ‘Vieni a dormire, mamma!’ le dicevo, ma lei non si coricava mai senza aver finito il lavoro. E che meravigliosi fiori e foglie ricamava, senza aver bisogno di nessuno
schema o modello. Sulla sari fioriva un intero giardino, e a vederlo entrava la primavera nel cuore. Ora mi vien da pensare che se lei avesse avuto la possibilità di
sollevare la propria vita dalla povertà e dalla monotonia… e a me sembra che si
ammazzasse di lavoro giorno e notte solo per noi, per i suoi bambini. Non era anche lei prigioniera, vittima dell’amore per i suoi figli?”
Dopo che il quadro di Manoranjan fu terminato, Javed continuò a frequentarlo
per parecchio tempo. Un giorno la madre di Manoranjan tornando dal mercato capitò davanti al PCO di Javed. Lui era là. C’erano anche molti altri ragazzi che
chiacchieravano. Attraverso la porta di vetro della cabina telefonica si vedeva una
ragazza che stava telefonando. Mrs. Gupta notò di sfuggita che tutti i ragazzi guardavano proprio solo la ragazza. Poi uno di loro strofinò un fiammifero sulla suola
delle scarpe lucide, accese una sigaretta e si guardò intorno. “Scostumato!” mormorò Mrs. Gupta.
Qualche giorno dopo… sarà stata davvero una coincidenza, perché Mrs Gupta
che non leggeva mai il giornale, non ne aveva proprio il tempo, ma quel giorno
prese il giornale, stese le gambe su uno sgabello e si mise a sfogliare le paginone.
Sulla pagina locale il suo sguardo si fermò su un articolo che riportava la notizia
della scomparsa di una ragazza. A questo proposito erano stati fermati alcuni ragazzi, che erano stati portati alla stazione di polizia per un interrogatorio. Leggendo
oltre, Mrs. Gupta fu sconvolta. Fra i ragazzi in stato di fermo c’era anche il nome
di un tale Javed che lavorava al PCO. E leggendo in dettaglio ebbe la conferma che
si trattava proprio di quel Javed che era amico di suo figlio, e che frequentava la
loro casa. Stravolta dall’agitazione, chiamò con voce tremante Manoranjan.
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Manoranjan era in camera sua. Sentendo il resoconto di sua madre dapprima
sbiancò, ma poi eluse il discorso. Mrs Gupta ebbe l’impressione che più che essere
preoccupato fosse mortificato.
“No, no, non può essere Javed! Non è quel tipo di ragazzo!”
“Ma in fin della fiera tu quanto lo conosci?”
“Lui non si interessa alle ragazze…”
A questa risposta di Manoranjan per un po’ nella stanza calò un silenzio imbarazzato sotto la cui superficie Mrs Gupta percepì un senso di colpa. Si affrettò a
spezzare il silenzio “Ma allora la polizia lo ha fermato per niente?”
“Ma dai, la polizia sta sempre a tallonare la gente a capocchia. E comunque non
sappiamo nemmeno se è proprio quel Javed!”
Invece era proprio quel Javed. E ancora allora, dopo tutto quel tempo, Manoranjan non era riuscito a liberarsi completamente dal veleno del dubbio che si era insinuato dentro di lui. Javed si era discolpato più volte, più volte aveva rigettato
quell’incidente, dichiarandosene estraneo. Ma quello che la mamma aveva raccontato e il fatto che Javed fosse scomparso per tutto quel tempo… Javed gli aveva
detto davvero tutto? Come aveva previsto lui, in effetti in quei mesi la faccenda si
era sgonfiata. Ma Manoranjan ce l’aveva ancora ben presente nella sua mente, anche se davanti a sua madre evitava di parlarne. Visto che oggi avrebbe incontrato
Javed, intendeva chiarire tutta la faccenda. Si sentiva intrappolato fra l’attrazione
per Javed e il sospetto che aveva nel cuore.
Rientrò dal terrazzo e si sdraiò in un angolo dello studio con gli occhi chiusi. La
luce del giorno che entrava dalla porta, ormai smagliante, filtrava attraverso gli occhi chiusi e alle sue orecchie giungeva una specie di lamento lontano. Si concentrò,
e scoprì che quel rumore proveniva da dentro di lui. Il pulsare del sangue nelle sue
tempie suonava come cavalli al galoppo che si avvicinassero di corsa. Poi, sull’orlo
dello sfinimento della notte, probabilmente si addormentò.
La sera si preparò in preda a sentimenti contrastanti, e uscì dal suo studio
nell’atrio. Non c’era nessuno. Spinse il pulsante dell’ascensore per scendere. Dentro l’ascensore era buio. Arrivato giù fu colto da un repentino senso di scoramento.
Gli sembrò che il suo cuore fosse disceso nel profondo di sé. Uscito all’esterno,
scoprì che il vento era completamente calato e c’era una pioggerella fresca e delicata, che colorava di sfumature smeraldo gli alberi di neem ai bordi della strada.
Sulla superficie bagnata di Aurobindo Marg un paio di auto si allontanavano serpeggiando. Alcune persone che erano state colte dalla pioggia senza ombrello si
riparavano sotto un cornicione. Senza preoccuparsi di bagnarsi cominciò a camminare velocemente, carezzato dalla pioggia. Si mise quasi a correre. Gli sembrò che
la pioggia gli avesse dato le brillanti ali nere di un uccello.
Javed era già arrivato e andava avanti e indietro a grandi passi sotto la tettoia
davanti al caffè. Perché Manoranjan ci metteva così tanto? Il caffè era pieno, gente
andava e veniva in continuazione. Per la pioggia c’era molto fango e l’andirivieni
delle persone lo aveva sparso ancora di più. Dall’interno del caffè proveniva un
profumo di dosa e l’odore del caffè filtrato dava a Javed una sorta di inebriamento.
Due ragazze uscirono dal caffè. Una aveva i capelli lunghi sciolti, l’altra capelli
corti. Si voltarono a guardare Javed, poi si allontanarono in fretta. Javed le osservò
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studiandole. I suoi occhi le seguirono allontanandosi con loro per un bel pezzo,
come le avessero abbracciate.
Quando le ragazze si furono allontanate vide Manoranjan che stava arrivando.
Camminava a passo spedito e le sue braccia ondeggiavano insieme alle gambe. Indossava una t-shirt azzurra e per la prima volta Javed pensò che aveva le orecchie
proprio grosse. Sporgevano dalla testa, e lui si sorprese di non averlo mai notato
prima. Non che Manoranjan gli fosse mai sembrato bello. Cercò di esaminare i
confusi sentimenti che provava per Manoranjan e sentì sorgere dentro di sé
un’ondata di irritazione. Le orecchie di Manoranjan gli apparivano molto buffe e a
vederle gli sarebbe dovuto venire da ridere, ma invece gli si era guastato completamente l’umore. Si sentì irritato e tutta la sua situazione gli sembrò assurda.
Manoranjan aveva visto Javed e venne davanti a lui con il suo solito imbarazzo.
“Pensavo che non saresti più tornato. Ti sei trovato bene a Bombay?”
Javed rimase per un po’ senza parlare. Il suo sguardo passò per un attimo sul
volto di Manoranjan, poi si fissò su un punto lontano. Disse sottovoce: “Non ci sono andato per niente a Bombay…”, cercava di mettere una nota di noncuranza nella
sua voce, ma un peso lo opprimeva e a metà frase tacque.
“Ehi, ma dove sei stato allora tutto sto tempo? Non hai nemmeno scritto una lettera!” Manoranjan aveva un tono accusatorio. “Sono andato a casa” rispose Javed.
“È tutto a posto?”
“Non ero andato a casa nemmeno una volta da quando ero venuto a Delhi. E mi
ballava sempre davanti alla vista il volto pallido di mia mamma, pensieroso, perennemente chino sul suo lavoro di sarta che non avrà mai fine… mi è venuta voglia di
andare a trovarla, di dirle…”
“Dirle cosa?” interruppe Manoranjan.
“Che non avevo più un lavoro… dopo la storia della ragazza quello là mi ha licenziato…”
“Ma tu dicevi che non avevi niente a che fare con questa storia…”
“In effetti è così… ma quella ragazza non è stata ritrovata e alcuni miei amici
erano finiti in galera per quel crimine… anzi, sono ancora dentro… e il padrone del
PCO, in base al sospetto, mi ha licenziato.”
“Beh, questa è proprio una brutta faccenda. E adesso cosa farai?” Per qualche
motivo Manoranjan non riusciva a guardare Javed in faccia.
Anche Javed rispose voltando la faccia dall’altra parte: “Torno a casa. Sono venuto a Delhi per prendere le mie cose, e volevo anche dirti tutto...”
Si interruppe. Erano entrati nel Madras Café e si erano seduti al loro solito posto. Chotu, il cameriere del ristorante, aveva pulito il loro tavolo con uno straccio
sporco e aveva messo davanti a loro del caffè. Quando si era allontanato Javed
aveva parlato così in fretta che le tre parole della sua frase erano uscite insieme dalla sua bocca, come se dentro di lui una tempesta avesse improvvisamente spalancato e sbattuto una porta.
“Sto per sposarmi!”
Colto di sorpresa, Manoranjan lo fissò in volto. Per un po’ gli sembrò di aver
sentito male. Durante tutta l’assenza di Javed non gli era nemmeno passato lontanamente per la testa che tra loro due potesse mettersi di mezzo una questione come
il matrimonio. Infine disse: “Ma tu non dicevi che le ragazze non ti interessano?”
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“Non è quello… io amo ancora solo te…” disse Javed con una voce così flebile
che prima ancora che potesse arrivare a Manoranjan era svanita nel silenzio.
“Ma allora perché ti sposi?” domandò Manoranjan.
“Era l’unico desiderio di mia mamma e io non voglio farla soffrire dicendo di
no… Ha passato tutta la vita sacrificandosi per noi… come posso rifiutarlo? È lei
che ha scelto Mehru per me”.
“Ma che lavoro farai?”
“Il padre di Mehru mi sta procurando un lavoro”.
Sul volto di Manoranjan era calata un’ombra di scoramento. Chiese: “Dunque
tornerai a essere prigioniero nella prigione da cui sognavi di scappare via?”
Javed sospirò e disse: “Quando lasciai Pratapgarh e venni a Delhi mi sembrò di
aver raggiunto la liberazione. Tutto mi appariva nuovo e diverso. Il mio mondo si
era dilatato, era diventato enorme. Mi piaceva. Ma adesso capisco che se per me la
vita di Pratapgarh era una prigione, quella vita è dentro di me. Non sono riuscito a
liberarmene. Torno in continuazione negli stessi posti, i vicoli stretti, il negozio del
tè e del paan, gli alberi di pipal e di mahua, e la sera, dopo aver steso la tovaglia
per terra, cenare con la mamma al lume della lanterna o, se c’è la corrente, alla luce
della lampadina… La sensazione di essere stabili in un posto per la vita. Tutto questo ce l’ho dentro e rivivo in continuazione il mio passato, nella mia memoria non
c’è niente di nuovo. Qui sono un estraneo…”
Si interruppe per prendere fiato e allora Manoranjan disse: “Ma che ne sarà di
noi due?”
“Te l’ho detto che ti amo ancora. Continueremo a vederci.”
“Ma come?”
“Continuerò a venire a Delhi e anche tu puoi venire a Pratapgarh! La mamma ti
accoglierà a braccia aperte!”
“Uhm…!”
Manoranjan stava seduto, muto. I suoi occhi erano immobili, fissi alla parete del
caffè. Il muro era dipinto di una dozzinale tinta turchese. Improvvisamente su di
esso si cominciò a delineare un motivo. Una linea retta di formiche stava salendo,
perfettamente dritta, con grande regolarità. Dove era diretta? Cercò di capire la sua
meta, concentrandosi su di essa. Javed stava ancora parlando ma Manoranjan non
lo ascoltava. Osservava solo le formiche. Loro si muovevano seguendo una legge
di natura, qualche atomo del loro minuscolo corpo conteneva la consapevolezza di
dove andare. Fuori la pioggia era cessata e da dietro il velo delle nuvole un sole
slavato stava cercando di spuntare.
105
Queerness in the Middle East and
South Asia
Bibliografia orientativa e strumenti di ricerca nel web
a cura di
Jolanda Guardi
Dall’inizio degli anni ’90 a oggi, i riferimenti bibliografici per chi desidera occuparsi di studi queer in generale e nei paesi oggetto del presente numero sono
orami molto numerosi. In questa sede vengono segnalati solamente quelli considerati essenziali per una visione d’insieme.
Lo stesso a maggior ragione per quanto riguarda la filmografia e la sitografia; le
indicazioni sono di carattere orientativo per chi volesse cominciare un percorso di
ricerca in questo senso.
In lingue occidentali. Monografie
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Ballhatchet, Kenneth. 1980. Race, Sex and Class Under the Raj: Imperial Attitudes and Policies and their Critics, 1793-1905. New York: St. Martin’s. Press.
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Bareed Mista3jil. True Stories. 2009. Beirut: meem.
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Haeri, Shahla. 1989. Law of Desire. Temporary Marriage in Shi'i Iran. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.
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Pattanaik, Devdutt. 2002. The Man Who Was a Woman and Other Queer Tales
from Hindu Lore. New York: Harrington Park Press.
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Sitografia
http://www.calem.eu/publications.html
Confederazione di associazioni LGBTQ europee e musulmane.
http://equalindiaalliance.wix.com/home
Equal India Alliance
http://www.galva108.org/
Galva -108: gay & lesbian vaishnava association
http://ganjoor.net/ (Sito di letteratura persiana classica in versione originale).
http://www.gaylaxymag.com/
Gaylaxy
http://www.gaylaxymag.com/hindi/
Gaylaxy hindi
http://gaysifamily.com/
Gaysi
http://www.glas.org/
Organizzazione di sostegno a LGBTQ arabi con sede principale negli
Stati Uniti.
http://www.humsafar.org
The Humsafar Trust
http://www.ilgrandecolibri.com/p/moi-musulmani-omosessuali-initalia.html
Sito del MOI, Musulmani Omosessuali Italiani.
http://www.imaan.org.uk/
Sito di supporto alla comunità LGBTQ in Gran Bretagna.
www.irqr.net
Sito dell’organizzazione canadese Iranian Network for Queer Refugees,
che si occupa di LGBTQ iraniani.
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http://majalehmaha.wordpress.com/
Sito della rivista LGBTQ M!h!.
http://nigahdelhi.blogspot.it/
Nigah Queering Perspectives
http://pink-pages.co.in/
Pink Pages India's National Gay & Lesbian magazine!
http://queer-ink.com
Queer Ink publishing
http://queermuslimrevolution.blogspot.it/
Sito di informazione su LGBTQ musulmani nel mondo.
http://queerazaadi.wordpress.com/
Queer Azadi
http://sangama.org/files/sexualminorities.pdf
Sangama
http://www.samabhavanasociety.org/education.html
Samabhavana Society
http://www.sanginii.org/sangini.htm
Sanginii Trust’s website
http://sansadhan.wordpress.com/
Samlai8gik-sambandh$ j#nk#r$
Netherlands 2006, 65’.
117
Janet Afary e Kevin B. Anderson, Foucault and the Iranian Revolution.
Gender and the Seduction of Islamism, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2005, pp. 346.
L’inizio della Rivoluzione che rovesciò il regime dello shah Reza Pahlavi a fine
anni ‘70 fu salutato con favore da molti intellettuali di sinistra, incluso Michel Foucault (1926-1984). Già famoso per i suoi originali studi sul rapporto tra potere e diversità (fra i tanti, Storia della Follia e Storia della sessualità), nell’autunno del
1978 Foucault fu incaricato dal Corriere della Sera di redigere una serie di reportage su quanto stava accadendo in Iran. Foucault trascorse solo un breve periodo a
Tehran e in altre città iraniane, dove si entusiasmò per la rivoluzione in corso, approvandola indipendentemente dai suoi possibili esiti. Dopo l’instaurarsi della Repubblica teocratica, Foucault fu accusato da molti di miopia politica; l’intellettuale
francese, tuttavia, non abiurò mai le sue prime impressioni, né ritrattò in modo sistematico – ovvero, con un saggio – la sua posizione sugli eventi iraniani.
Gli articoli apparsi nel “Taccuino persiano” (così si chiamava la rubrica del
Corriere ospitante gli interventi di Foucault) sono stati proposti e commentati varie
volte in Italia e in Francia1, mentre i lettori anglosassoni hanno dovuto attendere il
2005 per una loro parziale edizione/traduzione, contenuta in questo libro di Afary e
Anderson (d’ora in avanti, ‘gli Autori’).
Le posizioni del filosofo francese nei confronti della Rivoluzione d’Iran sono
state ampiamente commentate/contestate tanto in Europa quanto negli Stati Uniti,
dov’è stato pubblicato Foucault and the Iranian Revolution, anch’esso accolto da
una serie di recensioni. Questa mia non entra nel merito dei giudizi sulla prima fase
della Rivoluzione iraniana espressi da Foucault, piuttosto contesta agli Autori l’uso
mistificatorio della figura di Michel Foucault e quello inappropriato della dimensione di genere per giungere al loro scopo, ovvero la stroncatura della Rivoluzione
iraniana.
La scansione di questo saggio rende subito chiaro che i testi di Foucault sono
solo il pretesto per un’accesa polemica nei confronti della Rivoluzione del 1978-79
e del filosofo, reo di averla appoggiata. I reportage di Foucault incriminati compaiono solo come appendice a pagina 181 del libro, dopo che i precedenti capitoli
hanno demolito la figura dell’intellettuale francese presentandolo come un amorale
pervertito, pederasta, pedofilo, antifemminista. Per ottenere il loro proposito, ovvero la cancellazione di ogni possibile segno positivo di quanto accaduto nell’Iran
degli ultimi tre decenni, gli Autori forgiano un non lusinghiero ritratto di Michel
Foucault, esaminando la sua vasta produzione dalla quale estrapolano poche citazioni direttamente usate dal filosofo, in modo selettivo e discriminatorio, decontestualizzandole e presentandole non con le sue parole dirette, quanto piuttosto attraverso la critica negativa espressa da altri studiosi.
1
Fra i tanti, cfr. Taccuino persiano, a cura di Renzo Guolo e Pierluigi Panza, Guerini e Associati, Milano 1998; e Michael Foucault. L’Islam et la révolution iranienne-L’Islam e la rivoluzione iraniana, a
cura di Andrea Cavazzini, Mimesis, Milano 2005.
© DEP
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Prima ancora di proporre la traduzione inglese degli scritti Foucaultiani sulla
Rivoluzione iraniana (che, come detto, sono articoli giornalistici “a caldo” che non
costituiscono né il frutto di ponderati studi né hanno la pretesa di rappresentare un
conclusivo saggio su un fenomeno allora solo all’inizio), gli Autori consegnano ai
lettori un Foucault carico di gravi pregiudizi. Per loro Michel Foucault era, nelle
migliori delle ipotesi, un “mistico”, un romantico appassionato che ha esotizzato
l’Oriente (17), un nostalgico del sistema aristocratico e paternalista delle civiltà
orientali (18), che nelle sue ricerche ha privilegiato la voce del potere silenziando
quella dei giovani e delle donne (19). Come se non bastasse, per smantellare
l’intuizione del filosofo francese sull’importanza dei miti dello sciismo e, in particolare, del martirio quale chiave di lettura per l’entusiasmo e il successo con cui le
folle affrontavano il regime imperialista, gli Autori tacciano Foucault di essere un
sadico affascinato dal martirio, dalla sofferenza, dal suicidio e un accolito del marchese de Sade (34-35).
Come accennato, è soprattutto la dimensione di genere che è manipolata per alterare il profilo e il pensiero di Foucault, innanzitutto sottolineandone il presunto
misoginismo, che secondo gli Autori si rivelerebbe nell’acritico entusiasmo
dell’intellettuale francese per il movimento islamista che invece disprezza le donne
e i loro diritti.
Nel terzo capitolo (Visits to Iran and controversies with “Atoussa H. and Maxime Rodinson) gli Autori riportano, quale segno della disistima di Foucault nei
riguardi delle donne, lo scambio di corrispondenza da lui avuto sulle pagine de Le
Nouvel Observateur (1978) con un’esule iraniana, celata sotto lo pseudonimo di
Atoussa H., che lancia un appello alla gauche intellettuale francese, incluso Foucault, a non lasciarsi affascinare da un governo di tipo islamico, che sembra incombente. La lettera di Atoussa è tanto parafrasata quanto riportata verbatim (92 e
209-210, seppure non nella sua interezza) e usata come accusa contro Foucault per
non aver considerato i problemi di genere insorti con la Rivoluzione (92). La risposta di Foucault, riportata solo in appendice (210), nel testo è riassunta e tagliata ad
hoc in modo da far intendere che il filosofo è “sprezzante” dei diritti delle donne da
lui totalmente ignorati (93).
Per corroborare il mito di un Foucault paladino del patriarcato, gli Autori continuano il capitolo con le critiche rivolte a questi dall’illustre studioso dell’islam
Maxime Rodinson, che però nulla hanno a che vedere con questioni di genere.
Altrettanto imprecisa è l’analisi storica delle riforme dello shah (71-74), tesa a
far passare l’opera del sovrano come “gender friendly” (un’interpretazione peraltro,
già abbondantemente smentita da studiosi/e tanto iraniani/e quanto occidentali). Le
politiche di genere dello shah sono proposte non solo in modo antitetico a quelle
della Repubblica Islamica, ma, soprattutto, col fine di sottolineare la miopia antifemminista di Foucault. In realtà, egli si è solo dimostrato favorevole alla Rivoluzione, non alla forma di governo teocratico che ne è conseguita, né tantomeno ha
approvato alcuna vessazione nei confronti delle iraniane.
Dopo aver asserito che Foucault avrebbe amato la Rivoluzione iraniana perché
antimodernista e antifemminista come lui, gli Autori costruiscono il quinto capitolo
(Foucault, Gender and Male Homosexuality) in cui collegano l’omosessualità dello
studioso francese alla sua positiva valutazione della Rivoluzione. Partendo dagli
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studi Foucaultiani sulla sessualità nella civiltà greco-romana, gli Autori sostengono
che Foucault avrebbe trovato una continuità fra l’omosessualità della Grecia antica
e quella contemporanea in Nord Africa e Medio Oriente (139). Gli Autori affermano che Foucault, dopo aver idealizzato l’omoerotismo praticato nella civiltà grecoromana “da un piccolo elitario gruppo” di uomini (ibid.), lo ha cercato e trovato in
Medio Oriente. Inoltre, benché nei suoi scritti si dimostri consapevole
dell’elasticità che caratterizza le relazioni omosessuali nel mondo islamico, Foucault non riconosce i diritti della comunità LGBT in quella civiltà, anzi, le sue posizioni sono in contrasto con le aspirazioni degli omossessuali nella regione (Ibid.).
Ancora continuano gli Autori: Foucault non è mai stato “un entusiasta sostenitore del movimento di liberazione gay e lesbico in Francia e in Europa occidentale
negli anni ’70 né ha condiviso il nuovo entusiasmo per il gay-pride” (29). Insomma, gli Autori hanno l’assurda pretesa di conoscere i desiderata di tutti gli omosessuali del mondo islamico e volutamente ignorano che Foucault non si è mai identificato con nessun movimento, neppure con quello gay, per il quale, comunque, era
un punto di riferimento e col quale dialogava, anche polemicamente.
Ciò che colpisce maggiormente di questo libro è l’uso dell’omosessualità di
Foucault per screditarlo: il filosofo francese sarebbe stato un misogino omosessuale
vecchio stampo per il quale il rapporto omoerotico era sopraffazione di ragazzi usati quali oggetti sessuali (145). Foucault era ammalato di Orientalismo Romantico,
asseriscono gli Autori ricorrendo a Edward Said (142), malattia che lo spingeva a
ricercare nostalgicamente l’etica dell’amore dell’antica Grecia in cui i corpi erano
“docili” (153). Al contrario, il filosofo francese era assai più critico verso la civiltà
romana, le cui donne avevano ottenuto alcuni diritti tramite l’istituzione del matrimonio; per cui gli Autori concludono che “più le donne acquisivano diritti tramite
il matrimonio, più questa istituzione perse valore” agli occhi di Foucault (Ibid.). La
tesi sostanziale di questo testo è che la genesi dell’entusiasmo di Foucault per il
Medio Oriente e la Rivoluzione iraniana vada tracciata nel periodo da lui trascorso
in Tunisia a fine anni ’60 per seguire il compagno, Daniel Defert, lì comandato dal
servizio di leva. Gli Autori non fanno cenno invece all’impegno profuso da Foucault in Nord Africa, dove non solo assistette alle manifestazioni studentesche locali, ma diede man forte ai ribelli2. Piuttosto, essi fanno precedere il paragrafo sul suo
soggiorno tunisino da una citazione di Edward Said sull’Oriente quale luogo in cui
cercare esperienze sessuali impossibili in Europa e da una lista di romanzieri libertini che hanno (omo)sessualizzato il Medio Oriente (140). Essi rimarcano come
Foucault rientri in questo gruppo di turisti sessuali e come la sua esperienza tunisina abbia forgiato quella successiva in Iran. Foucault, insomma, sarebbe andato
prima in Tunisia e poi in Iran poiché i due paesi rappresentavano altrettanti paradisi
omosessuali. Egli era convinto che in Tunisia gli omosessuali “godessero di maggiore libertà che in Francia” (141).
Gli Autori citano altresì il biografo David Macey, che allude ai numerosi giovani amanti arabi avuti da Foucault a riprova della sua insaziabilità erotico/esotica
(ibid.). Menzionando la prima visita di Foucault in Iran, inoltre, rilevano come il
2
D. Trombadori, Colloqui con Foucault. Pensieri, opere e omissioni dell’ultimo maître-à-penser, Castelvecchio, 20005 (2^ ed.)
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filosofo avesse appresso il suo “amante” Thierry Voeltzel (69), una precisazione
che appare tanto fuori luogo quanto sprezzante, se non addirittura omofobica.
Gli Autori incalzano, riportando una citazione del sociologo tunisino Fathi Triki
che rileva come Foucault fosse “parte di quella cultura turistica francese […] ipotizzante un’apertura nella cultura araba e mediorientale in materia di omosessualità” (141). Nessun scritto di Triki è però esibito a supporto di questa testimonianza,
ma solo una “comunicazione personale” (Ibid.). Allo stesso modo, e fuori contesto,
gli Autori chiamano in causa pure il sociologo iraniano Ehsan Nabavi che in
un’intervista dichiara che Foucault credeva che “l’islam approvasse
l’omosessualità” (143). E per confutare definitivamente la presunta convinzione di
Foucault sulla liceità dell’omosessualità nell’islam, gli Autori citano alcuni versi
coranici, ribadendo la convinzione che questi contengano “severe ingiunzioni contro gli omosessuali maschi e femmine” (156); ignorando, quindi, come numerosi
studiosi abbiano in modo convincente affermato il contrario3.
Nel contempo e coerenti alla loro crociata, gli Autori stilano un excursus sulla
frequenza dell’omosessualità nel mondo musulmano che chiudono cronologicamente con gli abominevoli stupri compiuti dai Taleban a danno dei connazionali
afgani (158-159), come se i sedicenti studiosi di Corano fossero gli autentici rappresentanti del messaggio dell’islam e la loro esperienza riassuntiva di tredici secoli di storia islamica. Gli Autori intendono così affermare che la presenza omosessuale è assai estesa nel mondo musulmano, dove però ha solo connotazione di rapporto violento e sopraffattorio, quale quello approvato e perseguito da Foucault,
che nella sua ricerca “ha escluso i marginalizzati”, essendo solo interessato “al
punto di vista e alla storia delle élite” (144).
Le conclusioni (Epilogue) sono in linea con il corpo del testo. Gli Autori collegano la Rivoluzione iraniana a tutti gli esecrabili eventi avvenuti negli ultimi
trent’anni facendo credere che l’avvento dei Talebani, il 9/11, al Qaeda e
quant’altro siano figli del khomeinismo e che questo sia stato promosso da Michel
Foucault, il quale non ha “mai fatto nessuna dichiarazione pubblica mentre gli iraniani soffrivano terribilmente sotto un regime che egli aveva aiutato costruendogli
supporto” (133). Foucault, insomma, sarebbe il Goebbels della Rivoluzione d’Iran
e responsabile di ogni conseguente avvenimento negativo.
Probabilmente gli Autori avevano un ambizioso progetto, smantellare non solo
la Rivoluzione iraniana e le sue conseguenze, ma pure l’intera istituzione
dell’islam; a questo scopo, hanno usato Michel Foucault non accontentandosi di
criticare gli articoli giornalistici da lui scritti sul soggetto, ma coinvolgendone tutta
l’opera scientifica, demonizzando il filosofo francese e colpendolo nella sua sessualità. Nel momento stesso in cui accusano Foucault di essere un orientalista pervertito e innamorato dell’Altro, gli Autori rivelano il loro orientalismo nel ridurre il
filosofo a una caricatura di omosessuale affascinato acriticamente da un fenomeno,
la Rivoluzione iraniana – che è stato invece epocale stravolgendo la geopolitica del
mondo intero – solo perché in quella regione poteva praticare liberamente la sua
omosessualità. Hanno poi collocato tale ridicolo ritratto in una geografia inventata,
3
Cfr. Jolanda Guardi-Anna Vanzan, Che genere di islam. Omosessuali, queer e transessuali tra shari’a e nuove interpretazioni, Ediesse, Roma 2012.
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di stampo vetero colonialista, che dipinge l’Iran e il Medio Oriente come mete del
turismo omosessuale: così facendo, gli Autori hanno orientalizzato non solo Foucault, ma anche gli abitanti della regione.
Anna Vanzan
122
Ruth Vanita e Saleem Kidwai, Same-Sex Love in India. Readings from Literature and History, St. Martin’s Press, 2000, pp. 368.
In Asia meridionale è ancora molto diffusa la convinzione che l’omosessualità
sia un’aberrazione, la cui introduzione nel subcontinente sia dovuta alla sua importazione dall’Europa in epoca moderna o, se le si vuole riconoscere una presenza più
antica, dall’Asia centrale nel cosiddetto medioevo indiano. Per molto tempo il fenomeno queer in questa regione è stato meno studiato rispetto all’Asia orientale o
occidentale. Di conseguenza, sebbene le letterature indiane siano state oggetto di
ricerche approfondite, a lungo la presenza di voci queer non è stata riconosciuta,
oppure è stata interpretata come eterosessuale. Alla metà degli anni Novanta del
secolo scorso nell’introduzione alla sezione dedicata all’Asia meridionale del suo
ormai classico The Gay and Lesbian Literary Heritage, a reader’s companion to
the writers and their works, from antiquity to the present (New York: H. Holt,
1995), Claude Summers affermava che le letterature indiane sono reticenti
sull’argomento, attribuendone la causa al conservatorismo delle popolazioni della
regione.
Dalla fine degli anni Ottanta alcuni personaggi di origine indiana dichiaratamente gay e bisessuali come Suniti Namjoshi, Firdaus Kanaga, Vikram Seth e
Bhupen Khakhar si posero in rilievo a livello internazionale. Nell’ultimo decennio
del XX secolo una serie di eventi contribuirono a far entrare le problematiche queer
nel dibattito pubblico, soprattutto in India, dove il dibattito di genere, pur ricco e
fecondo, si era sempre concentrato sulla questione femminile. Nel 1987 la stampa,
che fino ad allora aveva trattato il lesbismo esclusivamente in connessione a notizie
di suicidi di coppie di giovani donne costrette a sposarsi dalle famiglia, che si toglievano la vita dichiarandosi amore eterno, diede grande risalto, anche a livello
nazionale, alla notizia del matrimonio di due poliziotte, Leela e Urmila, avvenuto
con il benestare della famiglia di Urmila. Nessuna delle due donne aveva legami
con movimenti queer, e la loro scelta avveniva al di fuori di qualunque organizzazione internazionale. Da ciò ebbe inizio un vivace dibattito pubblico sul lesbismo.
Nel 1990 fu fondato Bombay Dost, “India ‘s first registered LGBT magazine”
(http://www.bombaydost.co.in/), e nel 1991 apparve “Less than Gay: A Citizens’
Report on the Status of Homosexuality in India”, il primo studio pubblicato
sull’omosessualità in India, promosso dall’AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan (la
campagna contro da discriminazione dell’AIDS). Il rapporto fu denunciato come
letteratura pornografica, e fu necessario l’intervento del Press Council of India
(PCI) per stabilire che la pubblicazione potesse circolare liberamente. Grazie anche
all’attività di organizzazioni impegnate nella lotta contro l’HIV, la pubblicazione di
newsletter e materiali di argomento queer ebbe un grande sviluppo in quegli anni e
molte organizzazioni LGBTetc sorsero specialmente nelle aree metropolitane e urbane del paese.
L’interesse della stampa e dell’accademia ha accompagnato la crescita dei movimenti queer, come testimonia l’accoglienza positiva di importanti saggi e antologie uscite in quegli anni. Basti ricordare lo studio di Jeffrey John Kripal su Ramakrishna (Kali’s Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of
Ramakrishna, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995) o antologie di scrittrici
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lesbiche contemporanee (Facing the mirror. Lesbian writings from India, a cura di
Ashwini Sukthankar, New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 1999) o di scrittori gay del
XX secolo (Yaraana. Gay writing from India, a cura di Hoshang Merchant, New
Delhi: Penguin Books, 1999).
In questo contesto ebbe inizio anche una ricerca rivolta al passato, per contrastare le posizioni omofobiche che, a partire dal XIX secolo, avevano visto unirsi il
governo coloniale e alcuni gruppi conservatori fino ad allora rimasti fenomeni minoritari: la legge 377 del codice penale indiano, proclamata nel 1860 e ancora in
vigore in India, criminalizzava i rapporti sessuali “innaturali” fra adulti consenzienti. Anche il crescente nazionalismo hindu tendeva a negare che il fenomeno queer
fosse qualcosa che avesse a che fare con la cultura indiana.
Nel 1996 Giti Thadani, una studiosa che vive fra Berlino e Delhi, pubblicò Sakhiyani: Lesbian Desire in Ancient and Modern India (London, New York: Cassell
1996), che ottenne immediatamente un ampio riconoscimento internazionale. Con
una formazione storica, linguistica e artistica da autodidatta, Giti Thadani era convinta di poter combattere l’omofobia restituendo all’opinione pubblica del suo paese una conoscenza che era stata lasciata cadere in oblio. Nel 1985 aveva acquistato
un pickup, con il quale aveva viaggiato in lungo e in largo per l’India alla ricerca di
templi abbandonati dedicati al culti femminili per comprendere le rappresentazioni
della divinità femminile nell’antichità hindu (questa esperienza è narrata in
Moebius Trip: Digressions from India’s Highways, Penguin Books, New Delhi
2003). Partendo dai ritrovamenti archeologici delle società prevediche e da una lettura in contesto della letteratura vedica, Sakhiyani rivela l’esistenza di una prospettiva fluida sul genere e sulla sessualità, la presenza di una solida cultura al femminile che nel corso dei secoli è stata messa in secondo piano e riletta in chiave patriarcale dalla tradizione brahmanica.
Il limite di questo – seppure importante – lavoro di documentazione è che si limita all’antichità, elidendo completamente il materiale letterario medievale e ogni
riferimento alla tradizione del subcontinente non hindu. Same-Sex Love in India,
pubblicato nel 2000, si sforza di dare una panoramica del fenomeno queer a raggio
più ampio, presentandosi come un’antologia di testi che raccontano storie di amore
per persone dello stesso sesso prodotti nell’arco di due millenni, redatti in una dozzina di lingue e in tradizioni culturali indiane molto diversificate. Questa pubblicazione, frutto di ricerche ventennali condotte separatamente da Saleem Kidwai e
Ruth Vanita, è stata fondamentale per porre l’accento su una rappresentazione positiva delle relazioni queer che è testimoniata nella scrittura indiana e che rivendica
l’appartenenza del queer alla storia e alla cultura dell’Asia meridionale.
Saleem Kidwai ha insegnato storia Indiana medievale per due decenni presso la
University of Delhi e attualmente è scrittore free lance. Oltre che di politica
dell’epoca mu!al si interessa di letteratura urdu e di musica dell’India settentrionale. È stato uno dei primi membri della comunità accademica indiana a fare outing e
a impegnarsi per i diritti delle comunità queer. Nei suoi scritti scardina la visione
monolitica dell’islàm come omofobico e sessuofobico, sottolineando la tensione,
talora creativa, altre volte insopportabile, fra alcuni testi e istituzioni censorie e altri
che celebrano la sessualità e l’omosessualità. Ruth Vanita, dopo aver lavorato a
lungo presso la Delhi University, insegna presso la University of Montana. Ha co124
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diretto dal 1978 al 1991 la prima rivista femminista indiana, Manushi, di cui è stata
fondatrice, ed è autrice di numerosi saggi, tra cui Sappho and the Virgin Mary: Same Sex Love and the English Literary Imagination (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996); Love’s rite: same sex marriage in India and the West (New York :
Palgrave Macmillan, 2005); Gender, sex, and the city : Urdu Rekht! poetry in India, 1780-1870 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). Ha inoltre curato numerose raccolte di saggi (con Madhu Kishwar, In search of answers: Indian women’s
voices from Manushi: a selection from the first five years of Manushi, New Delhi:
Manohar, 1996; Queering India: same-sex love and eroticism in Indian culture and
society, New York: Routledge, 2002) e ha tradotto dalla lingua hindi alcuni racconti di Pande Bechan Sharma (Chocolate, and other writings on male-male desire, New York: Oxford University Press, 2006) e il romanzo S"r" #ka$ di Rajendra Yadav (Strangers on the roof, New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1994).
Leggendo i documenti letterari presentati in Same-Sex Love in India si evince
che la rappresentazione delle relazioni omosessuali secondo un modello di oppressione e resistenza non è corretta: tanto dalle opere delle élite quanto dai testi ‘marginali’ emerge una pluralità di voci (xvii), che rimanda a un contesto nel quale
l’eteronormatività, pur predominante, non si traduce immediatamente in
un’esplicita storia di persecuzione, ma permette aperture a espressioni alternative, a
possibilità diverse (12), che consentono di adattare, ritagliare spazi per comportamenti sessuali non legalmente ammessi (124). Per esempio, nell’epica hindu del
Mahabharata si trovano combinazioni di pregiudizi eterosessisti con posizioni critiche verso la sessualità intesa come esclusivamente procreativa; nella poesia urdu
medievale prodotta in ambito islamicato in contesto urbano si riflettono realtà sociali che non rientrano nelle attività sessuali istituzionalizzate; la poesia urdu rekhti
mostra uomini che danno voce a sentimenti passionali fra donne. In questa lunga
storia culturale si crea un vocabolario sensibile alle variazioni nel tempo e nello
spazio dell’idea di che cosa sia “sessuale” (xiii). In questa ricca gamma di possibilità, che non si può iscrivere nelle consuete dicotomie (omo/etero, maschio/femmina), le classificazioni dei generi e delle possibili relazioni si moltiplicano, creando nuove distinzioni e categorie teoriche. Per esempio, l’amore omosessuale si esprime in svariate forme, dalle relazioni invisibili o ‘invisibilizzate’ a storie d’amore romantico molto visibili, a rituali istituzionalizzati che prevedono promesse solenni di unione per la vita alla presenza delle famiglie delle due persone.
Nell’India premoderna e precoloniale, dunque, esistevano discorsi complessi sulle
relazioni omoerotiche, con linguaggi, nomi, codici e terminologie specifiche per
designare queste relazioni e le persone che le intrattenevano.
La prefazione si propone di chiarire alcuni concetti le cui definizioni non sono
universalmente accettate. Per esempio, Saleem e Vanita distinguono fra “inclinazione omoerotica” e omosessualità attiva, introducendo l’amicizia romantica come
categoria di analisi delle relazioni fra persone dello stesso sesso. Vanita sottolinea
come l’accezione di “amore” sia da intendersi principalmente come attaccamento
romantico fra donne e fra uomini, senza necessariamente riferirsi a comportamenti
o a relazioni di tipo sessuale. Inoltre, nell’antologia si definisce “indiano” tutto ciò
che riguarda il subcontinente in epoca precoloniale, utilizzando il termine a indicare “some sort of geographical and social community” (xv); tale criterio, sebbene sia
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comprensibile nell’ottica di una semplificazione del discorso, a giudizio di chi scrive pone alcuni problemi, in quanto rischia di avallare una visione nazionalista della
realtà dell’Asia meridionale. Il desiderio di creare un quadro unitario è evidente
anche nello sforzo di inquadrare i diversi testi antologizzati in un contesto di dialogo e interscambio continuo: testi prodotti dalle elite in lingue usate da gruppi egemonici sono spiegati come facenti parte di un continuum nel quale tradizione ‘alta’
e ‘bassa’, scritta e orale, si sono sempre reciprocamente influenzate e assimilate.
Perciò ciascun testo presentato si presta a molteplici letture e deve essere interpretato insieme alle altre molteplici voci che configurano un quadro generale complesso.
Vanita e Kidwai hanno collaborato con altre dieci persone per la traduzione e
l’introduzione a testi originalmente in bengali, kannada, malayalam, oriya, pali,
persiano e tamil. La ricca selezione di testi presentati, che spazia su molte regioni
e lingue del subcontinente, rimane tuttavia squilibrata a favore del nord, probabilmente a causa della formazione delle persone che hanno curato il volume.
I testi, presentati in senso cronologico, sono tratti dall’ambito religioso canonico
e devozionale, dai trattati giuridici ed erotici, dai cicli epici e storici, dalle letterature moderne e da testi biografici, organizzati attorno a temi salienti. Particolarmente
interessante è il costante accento posto su costruzioni di genere, sessualità ed erotismo che si presentano alternativi anche a quelli presentate nella letteratura queer
mainstream, che talora porta avanti un discorso globale che prende come norma la
realtà nordamericana o europea.
Le parti introduttive (la prefazione e le introduzioni a ciascuna delle quattro sezioni principali del volume) sono particolarmente utili per fornire un quadro storico, chiarire la terminologia e presentare alcuni riferimenti bibliografici alle fonti e
altre pubblicazioni correlate. Spesso contengono interpretazioni nuove e non convenzionali dei testi, mettono in luce storie di censura, autocensura, elisione o altre
forme di mascheramento di contenuti omoerotici. Non mancano traduzioni nuove,
che ripresentano testi precedentemente tradotti in inglese in forme purgate.
Il volume rimane, anche a oltre un decennio di distanza, una lettura fondamentale per chi vuole accedere a traduzioni originali di testi antichi e moderni proveniente dal subcontinente indiano che parlino di relazioni gay e lesbiche, di comunità dove le definizioni di genere siano sfaccettate e critiche nei confronti
dell’eteronormatività patriarcale. Il discorso di genere non è evidenziato solo nei
testi omofonici, ma si sottolineano anche i pregiudizi che emergono da testi apparentemente ‘tolleranti’ o ‘progressisti’, nonché da alcune posizioni del movimento
femminista indiano.
Alessandra Consolaro
126
Khaled ar-Rouayheb, Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World,
1500-1800, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2005, pp. 210.!
Il testo di Khaled ar-Rouayheb ricostruisce da un punto di vista peculiare una
tra le tante filologie sessuali maschili, quella compresa tra il periodo abbaside e
quello ottomano (1550-1800), ossia nei secoli immediatamente precedenti
l’incontro con l’Occidente e la modernizzazione, tentando il superamento storico
della metafisica occidentale fallologocentrica, più volte denunciata dal filosofo
Jacques Derrida.
Attraverso l’analisi di testi di medicina, letteratura e poesia del periodo considerato, l’autore evidenzia come l’abusato binarismo tolleranza-intolleranza costituisca una chiave di lettura limitante per spiegare e comprendere l’attitudine sociale
nei confronti delle diverse inclinazioni sessuali che oggi vengono genericamente
comprese sotto il termine di omosessualità. In tal modo si evince che anche in un
periodo precedente la modernità, una rappresentazione monolitica della sessualità è
da rigettare, poiché essa è molto più sfumata e articolata.
In ogni capitolo del libro viene messa in discussione la stigmatizzazione della
rigidità musulmana, come se quest’ultima fosse di una sola specie, e come se
l’azione umana nel contesto sociale di riferimento fosse necessariamente condizionata in toto dal fattore religioso. Ar-Rouayheb sembra suggerire che tale rigidità
religiosa, che rifiuterebbe irrimediabilmente la sessualità verso lo stesso sesso, pecca invece d’ignoranza filologica. La rassegna storico-letteraria che lo scrittore propone all’interno del volume è, difatti, uno scacco gnoseologico all’orientalismo
vecchio stile, che secondo l’autore è talmente superato da non dover essere neppure
più discusso. Nella presentazione del percorso narrativo, inoltre, non mancano le
voci di chi ritiene che l’accettazione e l’idealizzazione dell’amore pederasta –
quando ancora l’omosessualità non era ancora stata costruita nella società musulmana – siano più un topos letterario affermato, che offre al lettore e alla lettrice un
mondo fatto di ragazzetti sbarbati attraenti, che non lo specchio intellettuale di un
desiderio carnale realmente vissuto.
Le tradizioni vittoriane e francesi di stampo colonial-puritano, che spesso inorridivano di fronte all’amore passionale tra uomini (!azal al-mu"akkar) influenzarono la diffusione in senso restrittivo delle opere a sfondo omosessuale già
nell’Impero Ottomano: i testi arabi che affrontavano il tema dell’amore carnale e
sentimentale tra uomini venivano tradotti mutando i pronomi personali, ove questi
ultimi lasciassero intendere che a essere coinvolte fossero due persone dello stesso
sesso biologico. Fu così che tali testi furono gradualmente “epurati” da simili elementi prima di essere pubblicati nei maggiori centri urbani di allora, quali il Cairo,
Damasco, Mosul, Baghdad e Aleppo, anche grazie a studiosi come at-Ta!"#w$ e alBust#n$ che appoggiavano gli europei nella loro scelta letteraria di ripudiare l’atto
sessuale tra uomini.
L’autore traccia anche la filologia semantica dei termini riferiti al sesso biologico e alla sessualità al fine di metter in luce come, anche verbalmente, una nozione
monolitica di omosessualità fosse in realtà assente nel mondo arabo musulmano, e,
come tale, a essa non fosse possibile contrapporre una sola, precisa proibizione con
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una conseguente chiara e definita punizione legale. La fornicazione (zin#) era considerata meno grave soltanto rispetto all’omicidio (qatl) e alla miscredenza o al politeismo (kufr o $irk).
Se la definizione attuale di omosessualità nell’arabo standard è $u"%" &ins', arRouayheb specifica che &ins' indicava inizialmente il sesso biologico e culturale
secondo cui il genere umano è tuttora artificialmente polarizzato.
Quando si scriveva nelle opere arabe letterarie di uomini affascinati da giovani
ragazzi, inoltre, non era il pederasta, bensì l’esteta a possedere tale “inclinazione
alla bellezza”. A condizione che non fosse implicato nessun desiderio carnale, il
guardare i giovani ragazzi (an-na(ar) era accettato parzialmente soltanto dalla
scuola giuridica (ma"hab) islamica %afi‘ita, ma proibito – o comunque non approvato (makruh) – dalle scuole hanafita e hanbalita, e punito duramente soprattutto
dalle scuole giuridiche malikita e sciita imamita.
È significativo, secondo l’autore, che nessuna punizione legale univoca fosse
prevista per atti sessuali ritenuti illeciti, sebbene attività sessuali per via anale tra
uomini venissero considerate patologiche e classificate come liw#) dalla Legge
islamica (atto compiuto dalla “gente di Lot”), cioè comparabili ai peccati di fornicazione e assunzione di alcool.
La posizione dei giuristi in epoca ottomana al riguardo era dunque alquanto varia. Ar-Rouayheb porta l’esempio di N#bulus$, appartenente alla scuola hanafita,
come incarnazione microcosmica della controversia tra Islam giuridico, intellettualità, arte e sodomia. Seppur N#bulus$ non considerasse anormale il desiderio verso
giovani ragazzi, non lo reputava in ogni caso “naturale” (tabi‘') quanto quello verso le donne.
Ar-Rouayheb evidenzia la differenza tra i giuristi islamici e la società islamica
nel disciplinare tali atteggiamenti sessuali, definiti, nella loro veste odierna, in termini di uniforme omosessualità.
Aldilà di ogni interpretazione manichea di tolleranza-intolleranza,
l’omosessualità sembra quindi essere scomponibile in atteggiamento, condotta e
identità umani, a loro volta scomponibili. Ovvero, l’omosessualità non può incarnare una categoria d’inquadramento sessuale verso la quale una cultura cambia il
proprio grado di repressione attraverso i secoli. L’esplorazione del livello di tolleranza culturale ha sempre rimandato, infatti, alla dicotomia sessuale di fondo femmina penetrata-maschio penetratore. Quello che interessa all’autore è piuttosto redigere una fenomenologia delle percezioni di omosessualità, in nome del costruttivismo de-essenzialista foucaultiano di cui vari antropologi e sociologi si sono fatti
portatori fino ai nostri tempi.
Dopo ar-Rouayheb, non è più intellettualmente rivoluzionario definire l’Islam
dell’Oriente premoderno come una religione che è originariamente tollerante con
gli omosessuali a livello sociale, perché “tollerante” e “omosessuali” trovano in tale testo la loro apocalisse ontologica. L’esplorazione storica e la filologia concettuale della sodomia, pederastia ed estetismo sessuale che ar-Rouayheb offre attraverso questo testo, non si limita al tipico terzomondismo che imputa all’Occidente
la decadenza e l’invisibilità storiche delle aperture morali d’Oriente; piuttosto incita il lettore e la lettrice a superare il tentativo di palingenesi dell’interpretazione di
“devianza” sessuale e della sua condanna.
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Il fine di ar-Rouayheb è quindi una storicizzazione mancata - letteraria, medica,
poetica e intellettuale - dell’etica umana e non solo di quella islamica, per la quale
conoscere non può e non deve equivalere a classificare, respingere o tollerare.
Estella Carpi
129
Ecos de la visita de Silvia Federici
a México en el otoño de 2013
de
Raquel Gutiérrez Aguilar
!
Durante tres semanas del mes de octubre de 2013 Silvia Federici realizó una
fértil y agotadora visita a México cuyos ecos continuamos elaborando, individual y
colectivamente. Horas y horas de conversación con todo tipo de públicos en una
serie de conferencias, seminarios y pláticas permitió que poco a poco se aclararan
algunos de los aspectos más filosos de su pensamiento: poner en el centro la crucial
cuestión de la reproducción de la vida – humana y no humana –, como acertadamente señala Mina Lorena Navarro en su contribución en este dossier – sobre todo
a la hora de reflexionar acerca de las posibilidades de transformación social que
anidan en las luchas que una y otra vez se despliegan en diversos lugares de nuestro mundo; entender lo común no como un conjunto específico de bienes o de cosas-aunque también existan comunes que tienen una materialidad objetiva y, aparentemente “natural”, de acuerdo al significado dominante de “no social”– sino
como aquello que es el resultado de una producción-reproducción, intencional y
colectiva del bien o fin en cuestión, es decir, habilitar la comprensión de lo común
básicamente como relación social, como clave para percibir-entender cierto tipo de
vínculo entre las personas y, a partir de ello, como vínculo también entre las personas y las cosas que ellos mismos producen; tal como destaca Lucía Linsalata en las
siguientes páginas. Estos dos, entre otros temas igualmente importantes como la
relevancia histórica de las luchas cotidianas de las mujeres en la preservación del
mundo y en la posibilidad de proponernos su re-apropiación-temática abordada por
Gladys Tzul; o la centralidad de la lucha contra el olvido y por la memoria a la hora de buscar pistas para orientarnos en la comprensión de lo que acontece, tal como
* Dra. Raquel Gutiérrez Aguilar, Maestra en Filosofía en el Área de Lógica, Filosofía del Lenguaje y
de la Mente. Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Doctora en
en Sociología por el Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades de la Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla. Profesora-investigadora de Tiempo Completo en el Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y
Humanidades de la BUAP. SNI nivel 1. Ha escrito más de 30 artículos en revistas especializadas y
más de 12 capítulos en libros de circulación nacional e internacional. Ha escrito los libros Los ritmos
del Pachakuti. Movilización y levantamiento indígena-popular en Bolivia (2000-2005), Desandar el
laberinto. Introspección en la feminidad contemporánea, ha editado y escrito los libros colectivos
Movimiento indígena en América Latina: resistencia y proyecto alternativo Volumen I y II y ellibro
Palabras para tejernos, resistir y transformar.
© DEP
ISSN 1824 - 4483
Raquel Gutiérrez Aguilar
DEP n. 25 / 2014
señala Elia Méndez. Estas ideas, además de ricas experiencias humanas, nos dejó la
visita de Silvia Federici y por ello, en homenaje a su esfuerzo, decidimos elaborar y
reunir estos breves textos donde algunas de quienes conversamos con Silvia hace
algunos meses decidimos exponer nuestras propias ideas e historias.
Invitada formalmente en el marco de un proyecto colectivo de investigación
asentado en la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)1 a la Ciudad
de México, su visita se amplió hacia Puebla y hacia Oaxaca con base en redes informales de afinidad académica y teórica. Quienes somos parte de tales redes coincidimos en lo mucho que valía la pena no sólo discutir y hacer conocer algunas de
las ideas que Silvia Federici ha desarrollado a lo largo de su amplia trayectoria;
sino que nos propusimos editar en México su obra más conocida, Calibán y la bruja. Mujeres cuerpo y acumulación originaria; así como una compilación de otros
artículos publicados bajo el título La revolución feminista inacabada. De esta manera, la visita de Silvia Federici nos permitió, además de muchas otras cosas, fortalecer el trenzado de nuestras propias relaciones a partir de la confianza y el compromiso con la organización y gestión de los seminarios, conferencias y presentaciones de su obra que se desarrollaron durante su visita. Resultó pues que estudiantes y profesores del Área “Entramados comunitarios y formas de lo político” del
Posgrado en Sociología del Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades de la
Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, junto a estudiantes y profesores del Posgrado en
Sociología de la Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca; al lado de estudiantes y profesores de la UNAM, de diversas carreras, acuerpados en el proyecto
de investigación sobre “Modernidades alternativas”; todos los anteriores, coordinando con dos editoriales mexicanas independientes: Pez en el Árbol y Escuela
Calpulli junto a otro amplio conjunto de estudiantes de otras instituciones en las
tres ciudades visitadas, UNITIERRA-Oaxaca, Escuela Nacional de Antropología e
Historia (ENAH) en el DF., etc.; hicimos posible que se visibilizaran y discutieran
ideas y posiciones sobre la producción de lo común, sobre la relevancia de las históricas luchas de las mujeres en defensa de lo comúnmente producido; al tiempo
que contribuíamos colectivamente a la conformación de sentidos de disidencia radicales, críticos e incluyentes.
Tal fue la experiencia de la visita de Silvia Federici a México y, a fin de continuar el diálogo que se abrió entonces, continuamos conversando con ella y entre
nosotras a través de las contribuciones reunidas en las siguientes páginas.
Producción de riqueza social y de decisión política: elementos clave de una
política de lo común.
En lo que a mi respecta, la visita de Silvia Federici me ha convocado a reflexionar, de manera sistemática sobre las posibilidades de transformación social, económica y política situando el punto de partida en el conjunto de actividades y procesos cíclicos necesarios para la reproducción de la vida en su conjunto. Al llevar a
cabo dicha traslación del punto de partida canónico para la comprensión de los
1
Proyecto PAPIIT IN306411, “Modernidades alternativas y nuevo sentido común: anclajes de una
modernidad no capitalista”, Facultad de Ciencias Políticas – UNAM.
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eventos sociales y políticos, desplazando el casi ubicuo énfasis puesto en los sucesivos bucles de reproducción ampliada de capital – como eje del análisis – poco a
poco se alumbra lo que puede llamarse una política de lo común. Forma ésta de lo
político, que no admite como legítima la tradicional separación entre una esfera específica del asunto económico, contrapuesta y supuestamente alejada del eventual
espacio de lo político y, sobre todo, del ámbito de producción de la decisión política.
Así, partir de la serie articulada de actividades cotidianas y de variados ciclos
que conforman los diversos procesos de reproducción social de la vida en su conjunto, a fin de alumbrar con nueva luz los procesos y luchas por la transformación
social desplegados en años recientes en México, Bolivia y Guatemala-entre otros
lugares - es un desafío interesante que permite, además, visibilizar y reconstruir el
central lugar de despliegue de las actividades y prácticas relacionadas con la garantía de la reproducción de la vida-lugar predominantemente ocupado por las mujeres, aunque no únicamente. Reflexionar de esta manera puede parecer contradictorio en tanto el par analítico “reproducción/transformación” o más aún “conservación/transformación” a lo largo de la modernidad ha sido entendido como dispositivo contradictorio y opuesto, que organiza la comprensión del orden temporal del
capital; orden que oculta, niega y desplaza otras maneras de comprender el tiempo.
Dichos pares clasificatorios, sin embargo, de entrada rompen el sentido de los heterogéneos tiempos vitales – pletóricos de ciclos y reiteraciones – para ajustarlos al
tiempo abstracto y homogéneo correspondiente a los procesos de acumulación de
capital y su sentido lineal de atraso y progreso.
En tal sentido, si admitimos la escisión entre reproducción de la vida y producción de mercancías-tal como lo sugiere Federici en Calibán y la brujanaturalizando su comprensión tras siglos de imposición del “desarrollo” capitalista;
es muy probable que, a la hora de pensar la transformación social-política y económica – únicamente podamos comprenderla como algún tipo de alteraciones y/o
variantes en las formas de producción de capital y en la estructuración del orden de
mando del estado. Peor aún, admitiendo como natural la histórica escisión entre
(re)producción de la vida y producción de mercancías; no lograremos ni siquiera
dar nombre al conjunto de riquezas sociales que existen y se producen sin cesar bajo pautas no mercantiles, mayoritariamente en el ámbito de lo doméstico-y quizá de
lo común – que es siempre sujeto de acoso y despojo en cada reiterada ofensiva del
capital – y de su política – a fin de asegurar la posibilidad de su acumulación ampliada.
En contraste con lo anterior, fijando el punto de partida de la reflexión sobre la
transformación social, económica y política posible, en los constantes ciclos de
producción y reproducción de la vida, el significado de lo político y la política se
alteran y reacomodan: la discusión política sobre las diversas maneras de modificar
y/o re-organizar nuevos ciclos de producción de capital deja de ser la clave interpretativa por excelencia, para dar paso a nuevas perspectivas críticas, no estadocéntricas (Gutiérrez 2009) a la hora de pensar lo político. En las luchas desplegadas
con energía y vitalidad en América Latina en los últimos años, protagonizadas por
hombres y mujeres comprometidos mayoritariamente con la defensa de sus medios
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de existencia-cuestión ésta que es el núcleo de mi actividad como investigadora2 –
constato que lo que ha sido puesto en juego una y otra vez, ha sido la reapropiación
de la riqueza social, entendida justamente como no-capital, sino como riqueza concreta que es condición material necesaria para la reproducción de la vida en su conjunto (agua, tierra, bosques, etcétera); así como la reapropiación de las capacidades
políticas enajenadas y monopolizadas por las diversas formas estatales liberales o
progresistas. Estos dos, a mi juicio, son los elementos centrales de la álgida disputa
contemporánea entre conjuntos variados y heterodoxos de hombres y mujeres que,
habitando tramas comunitarias de distintas clases, se esfuerzan por producir y reproducir lo común como garantía para el sustento material en contra de los reiterados despojos capitalistas de la riqueza así producida y de la capacidad de decidir
los términos de su disfrute y usufructo.
Las palabras y las ideas de Silvia Federici alumbran este camino crítico, aportando claves tanto para las luchas, como para las reflexiones que enlazándose con
ellas, son también necesarias. Reunir este dossier significa pues, así lo imagino,
responder a la convocatoria que Federici nos hizo hace algunos meses, con la esperanza de continuar la reflexión ya abierta.
2
He desarrollado argumentos más amplios sobre la temática en Los ritmos del Pachakuti (2009), y
junto a Fabiola Escárzaga, en Movimiento indígena en América Latina: resistencia y proyecto alternativo, Volumenes I (2005) y II (2006).
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Tres ideas generales para pensar lo común. Apuntes en torno
a la visita de Silvia Federici
de
Lucía Linsalata
!
Es difícil expresar en pocas páginas la enormidad de debates y reflexiones que
una entera semana en compañía de Silvia Federici despertó entre los estudiantes y
los profesores de la UNAM. Pocas veces en la vida se tiene la oportunidad de
confrontarse con un pensamiento tan lúcido y vital como el de Silvia; tan así, que
todo esfuerzo por sintetizar en pocas palabras la riqueza y la fuerza transformadora
de lo pensado y de lo discutido en aquellos días sería, a mi parecer, bastante vano.
Por ello, renuncié desde el inicio a asumir semejante desafío en un texto tan breve
como éste, para proponerme un ejercicio mucho más sencillo y alcanzable.
El ejercicio que me he propuesto consiste en sistematizar, a manera de apuntes
iniciales, tres ideas en torno a lo comunitario y a la producción de lo común que
han sido propuestas a lo largo de los diálogos sostenidos con Silvia Federici aquí
en Ciudad de México. Considero que tales ideas han resultado sumamente fértiles
para muchas de nosotras y nosotros, no sólo porque nos han proporcionado claves
importantes para comprender las múltiples realidades comunitarias que habitan
nuestras sociedades, sino también porque nos han permitido repensar críticamente
nuestras prácticas políticas y las posibilidades de transformación social que es
posible generar a partir de las mismas. En tal sentido, espero, que el ejercicio de
síntesis conceptual que se propone – por más breve que sea – pueda contribuir a
enriquecer el debate sobre estos temas, entre los lectores.
I. Lo común como relación social
Por debajo y parcialmente por fuera de la reglas de la política instituida y de la
acumulación capitalista – en las historias largas de las rebeliones y en los tiempos
heterogéneos y diversos que marcan el tejerse cotidiano de la resistencia y de las
luchas-, las mujeres, los hombres y los pueblos que habitan el abajo de nuestras
sociedades han tenido la habilidad de conservar, cultivar y, en muchos casos,
recrear por completo entramados asociativos y lógicas de cooperación social de
carácter comunitario centrados en la conservación y reproducción de la vida; es
decir, en la reproducción digna del sustento material, espiritual y afectivo de
* Lucia Linsalata es licenciada en Relaciones Internacionales y Diplomáticas por la Universidad de
Trieste (Italia) y doctora en Estudios Latinoamericanos por la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de
México (UNAM). Su investigación doctoral abordó el mundo comunitario y popular en Cochabamba,
Bolivia. Es profesora de asignatura en la carrera de Sociología de la Facultad de Ciencias Políticas y
Sociales de la UNAM y autora de diferentes artículos científicos y de divulgación. Entre sus publicaciones más relevantes destaca El ethos comunal en la política boliviana, EAE, Alemania 2012.
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comunidades humanas concretas, cuyas historias, geografías, calendarios y
sentidos del mundo se resisten a ser totalmente colonizados por el sentido
capitalista del mismo.
Se trata de un tejido social complejo, polimorfe, y frecuentemente discontinuo
desde el punto de vista histórico; un tejido que se compone de múltiples y
variopintas tramas organizativas, a lo largo de las cuales la vida se reproduce
siguiendo lógicas de colaboración y autoregulación de la convivencia social
dirigidas a solucionar problemas concretos, aspectos prácticos de la vida cotidiana.
Tales entramados asociativos representan, para muchas mujeres y muchos
hombres, una fuente cotidiana de sustento: un instrumento de sobrevivencia que les
permite hacer frente colectivamente a toda una seria de carencias y necesidades
compartidas, al tiempo de generar condiciones de vida más dignas y relaciones
sociales más satisfactorias, respecto a las opciones de vida impuestas por el orden
dominante.
De ninguna manera podríamos afirmar que en estos ámbitos comunitarios
desaparecen las desigualdades, las contradicciones y la violencia impuestas por la
relación capitalista dominante. Sin embargo, todos y cada uno de ellos representan
una grieta al interior del sistema de dominación. Representan un espacio de
cuestionamiento práctico del orden existente: un ámbito de organización de la vida
que escapa a la lógica del valor, reafirmando y relanzando a partir del trabajo vivo
y cooperativo de hombres y mujeres libremente asociados para la resolución de sus
problemas cotidianos, el valor de uso de la vida, la centralidad de su digna
reproducción, y la posibilidad de que ésta se dé a partir de múltiples formas de
organización social centradas en lo común, es decir, común y autónomamente
producidas por una comunidad concreta y para el disfrute de la misma.
En este sentido, recordando una idea que Silvia Federici suele repetir
constantemente en sus intervenciones, podemos decir que todas estas múltiples y
heterogéneas realidades sociales de carácter comunitario nos enseñan que lo común
no es, como se suele pensar, una cosa o un conjunto de recursos materiales que se
comparte entre varios, por lo menos, no es sólo esto; es sobre todo y antes que nada
una relación social: un conjunto de relaciones sociales de cooperación y
colaboración recíproca que se cultivan cotidianamente al interior de una comunidad
organizada de personas. Por lo mismo, lo común nunca está dado de antemano o
para siempre, sino todo el contrario: se produce continua e históricamente, a través
de la generación y constante reproducción de un articulado sistema de relaciones
sociales de colaboración, ayuda mutua y responsabilidad recíproca.
Por lo general, tales relaciones se van entretejiendo a partir de acuerdos que
hombres y mujeres de carne y hueso establecen libremente, a través de un ejercicio
constante de deliberación y autodeterminación. Pues, la producción de lo común
implica siempre una decisión compartida, una toma de posición por parte de una
colectividad organizada sobre cómo organizar algunos aspectos de su vida práctica:
una acción colectiva y autodeterminada de producción de la vida. En este sentido,
la pervivencia de lo común, al igual que su desaparición o destrucción, depende de
la capacidad que una comunidad de hombres y mujeres tiene de proponerse fines
compartidos y reafirmar, una y otra vez, la vigencia de los vínculos de cooperación
y recíproca obligación que les permiten realizar tales fines.
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Dicho en palabras de Silvia Federici: “No hay común si no hay comunidad”. No
hay común, si no hay una comunidad real de personas, un entramado vivo de
relaciones sociales de cooperación que lo produce y actualiza continua y
constantemente.
II. Lo común como movimiento de re-apropiación de la vida social y destotalización de la realidad dominante
Si asumimos con base en lo anterior que lo común no son sólo cosas, sino sobre
todo relaciones; si asumimos que lo común no es algo dado, sino algo que debe ser
constantemente producido por una comunidad real de personas capaces de
proponerse fines compartidos y alcanzarlos mediante la acción cooperativa,
tenemos que reconocer también que todo movimiento de producción de lo común
al interior de la sociedad capitalista conlleva siempre en sí un acción (implícita o
explícita) de re-apropiación de la vida social. Una acción de re-apropiación de la
vida social ante un orden dominante – el capitalista – que tiende a expropiar
permanentemente toda posibilidad de autodeterminación colectiva de la misma,
para dirigir y totalizar la realización de la vida en función de un principio ajeno a
ésta, el de la valorización del valor.
Me explico mejor. La modernidad capitalista se ha presentado históricamente
como un proyecto civilizatorio de totalización de la vida social (Echeverría, 1994);
es decir, de organización de la diversidad y de la heterogeneidad inscrita en lo
social en función de un “proyecto” unitario de articulación y homogeneización del
mismo. El motor propulsor de este proceso de totalización de la vida social ha sido
y sigue siendo el valor, o mejor dicho: la constante subordinación del proceso de
reproducción social a la lógica de valorización del valor, aquel mecanismo que
expropia permanentemente la capacidad social de definir las condiciones prácticas
del proceso de reproducción de la vida colectiva, al refuncionalizar constantemente
la realización del mismo en pos de la generación de ganancias y de la acumulación
capitalista. Este mismo proceso lleva en sí una dinámica permanente de
enajenación de la capacidad política del sujeto social de autoregular o
autodeterminar su vida en sociedad; dinámica cuya figura organizativa principal es
el estado moderno: es decir, aquella forma de la socialidad que se organiza a partir
de la separación y delegación, a una entidad externa al cuerpo social, de la
capacidad colectiva de decidir y gobernar sobre la regulación y la legalidad de la
vida colectiva.
Ahora bien, cuando una comunidad organizada de personas – en cualquier lugar
de este mundo capitalista – logra dotarse de fines compartidos y establecer, a partir
de la deliberación colectiva, reglas de cooperación social que les permitan alcanzar
tales fines; cuando un conjunto de hombres y mujeres logran articularse y colaborar
entre ellos para autodeterminar – aunque sólo parcialmente – algunos aspectos de
sus vidas materiales, no sólo están generando colectivamente algo común, sino que
están procediendo en contra de las dinámicas capitalistas de totalización de la vida
que acabamos de señalar; están generando un movimiento de destotalización de las
mismas y de recuperación de la capacidad política de autoregular sus vidas.
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Finalmente, lo común es aquello que se produce colectivamente, cuyo control o
gestión no es delegado a una instancia externa al cuerpo social, sino que es ejercido
directamente por aquellos y aquellas que lo producen. Lo común es un movimiento
de re-apropiación constante de lo que ha sido producido y logrado, y de lo que
puede ser producido y logrado, a partir de la articulación y del esfuerzo cooperativo
de varios (Gutiérrez, 2012). En ello descansa su gran potencial transformador: en la
posibilidad que la producción de lo común habilita, de relanzar todo el tiempo la
autodeterminación comunitaria por encima de la determinación ajena de la vida
impuesta por la relación capitalista y el orden instituido dominante.
III. Lo común como práctica de lucha
Para decirlo en otras palabras, lo que hace que lo común sea tan subversivo es el
hecho de que su producción nos brinda la posibilidad de dar una forma propia a
nuestra socialidad, generando un conjunto de relaciones sociales muy distintas a las
impuestas por el capital; producir lo común nos brinda la posibilidad de generar
autónomamente las relaciones sociales que queremos que alimenten la
reproducción de nuestras vidas cotidianas y, con ello, de generar las condiciones
para empezar a imaginar y producir, desde nuestro aquí y nuestro ahora, los
mundos en los que queremos vivir.
Esto es algo que Silvia Federici suele remarcar mucho en sus intervenciones.
Para Silvia, en efecto, la fuerza de lo común reside en gran medida en el hecho de
que su producción nos permite pensar la posibilidad de generar algo nuevo, de
generar nuevas formas de reproducción, organización y regulación de la vida
colectiva. Y no sólo de pensar esta posibilidad, sino de ensayarla y practicarla
cotidianamente en nuestras respectivas luchas y vidas cotidianas.
Finalmente, lo común representa una manera de hacer las cosas, una forma de
concebir y entretejer los lazos comunitarios, un modo de organizar la acción
cooperativa. En este sentido, lo común no representa la lucha en sí, sino más bien
una forma de construir la lucha, o como diría Silvia Federici: una perspectiva para
la construcción de la lucha y del antagonismo, un horizonte que puede ser cultivado
de forma trasversal al interior de muchas luchas.
¿A qué apunta el horizonte de lo común? Pues apunta a consolidar y amplificar,
en todo momento y en todo ámbito de la vida colectiva, la capacidad social de
autodeterminar la forma y el sentido de nuestras vidas prácticas, a través de la
construcción de redes sociales de reciprocidad y apoyo mutuo que nos permitan
crear lazos de confianza, tejer alianzas, asociarnos y cooperar libremente – de
manera múltiple y variada – según los problemas que se necesiten solucionar y el
objetivo, grande o pequeño, que se quiera alcanzar.
El horizonte de lo común apunta a consolidar una nueva práctica política que
sepa conjugar la construcción de una autonomía real y de la autodeterminación,
con la búsqueda de un cambio general en la sociedad dirigido a la construcción de
un mundo post-capitalista. Bajo el horizonte de lo común, el proceso de
construcción de este mundo otro es imaginado como un proceso progresivo de
erosión rizomática y desorden del orden dominante, simultáneo a la construcción
de otro orden; un proceso producido a partir de la acción convergente, articulada y
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creativa de múltiples sujetos autónomos capaces, no sólo de encontrarse en las
diferencias y de elaborar estrategias conjuntas de impugnación del orden
dominante, sino también de hacerse portadores, en su quehacer y en su luchas
cotidianas, de formas de entendimiento, producción y organización de la vida
social más cooperativas y solidarias; sujetos capaces de relanzar en su praxis
política el valor de la vida y del bienestar colectivo, así como el gusto por su pleno
disfrute, por encima de la barbarie capitalista.
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Mujeres comuneras en la lucha por la reproducción de la
vida ante el despojo capitalista: irradiaciones del
pensamiento de Silvia Federici
de
Mina Lorena Navarro Trujillo
!
En los últimos 15 años sobresale la manera en que se han extendido y
profundizado los conflictos socioambientales en toda América Latina provocados
por la incesante voracidad del capital por subsumir cualquier ámbito que no se
encuentre plenamente ceñido o regulado por los ordenamientos de la producción de
valor.
Al respecto, me interesa exponer algunas claves críticas que nos ayuden a
comprender cómo es que las tramas de conflictividad relacionadas con las políticas
de despojo y el renovado cercamiento de bienes naturales activan o generan un tipo
de relación social susceptible de afirmar o generar un común sobre la base de lo
que se comparte, y de manera particular cuáles son las formas de intervención de
las mujeres en esta tarea colectiva.
Para cumplir tales cometidos, entablaré un diálogo con algunos de los
planteamientos que Silvia Federici ha desarrollado y que en los diálogos e
intercambios en su visita a México comprendí mejor, principalmente en torno a la
producción de lo común y el importante rol de las mujeres en el impulso y
generación de formas de cooperación social fundamentales para la reproducción de
la vida. Al mismo tiempo, incluiré en dicho diálogo a algunas comuneras que
participan en luchas en defensa y reapropiación del territorio en México3.
En consonancia con lo anterior, planteamos la hipótesis de que el reciente ciclo
de movimientos socio-ambientales es parte de un proceso de resistencia y
reapropiación de la riqueza social que pone en el centro la producción de lo común
para la reproducción de la vida humana y no humana, tarea en la que resulta
fundamental la intervención femenina.
* Profesora de asignatura de la Facultad de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales de la UNAM. Doctora en
Sociología por el Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades de la Benemérita Universidad
Autónoma de Puebla (BUAP). Ganadora del Premio Cátedra Jorge Alonso a la mejor tesis en
Ciencias Sociales 2013, CIESASUniversidad de Guadalajara. Integrante de Consejo Asesor del
Laboratorio Multimedia para la Investigación Social de la FCPyS, UNAM. Ha publicado diversos
trabajos sobre crisis ambiental, ecología política, antagonismo y luchas socio-ambientales. Activista e
integrante de jóvenes en resistencia alternativa. Correo electrónico: [email protected].
1
Los testimonios que aquí se presentan son parte de las entrevistas realizadas para el documental Luchas socioambientales en México por parte del Laboratorio Multimedia para la Investigación Social
de
la
Facultad
de
Ciencias
Políticas
y
Sociales
de
la
UNAM.
http://investigacion.politicas.unam.mx/multimedia.ces/luchas_socioambientales.html
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La producción de lo común para la reproducción de la vida: alternativas
contra el capital
Silvia Federici, haciendo referencia al trabajo de Peter Linebaugh en el
Manifiesto de la Carta Magna, argumenta que los comunes son los cimientos de
una economía no capitalista y que éstos han supuesto un hilo conductor que ha
recorrido la historia de las luchas de clase en nuestro tiempo (Federici, 2013, pp.
149-150). Así, la existencia de relaciones sociales centradas en lo común de
ninguna manera puede plantearse como un fenómeno propio de los tiempos más
recientes, por el contrario, las formas comunitarias aparecen como un eje
constitutivo e inmanente en la historia de la humanidad.
A este respecto, una de las referencias más estudiadas son los espacios no
capitalistas u órdenes pre-capitalistas de Europa Occidental acaecidos durante el
feudalismo, en los que existían ciertos márgenes que permitían a la gente común
regirse por derechos de propiedad comunal. Estos modos de regulación social
funcionaban fundamentalmente como una estrategia que protegía y garantizaba la
reproducción social de la vida de manera independiente al poder arbitrario de los
señores feudales. Por un lado, se impedía que la depredación feudal se produjese a
costa de la comunidad y, por otro lado, se garantizaba la explotación sostenible de
la naturaleza. En este arreglo, solidaridad social y sostenibilidad se
complementaban en la medida en que la naturaleza se situaba, de hecho y de
derecho, en la base material de la reproducción comunitaria. Su destrucción era por
ende, la destrucción de la propia comunidad (Madrilonia.org, 2011, p. 47).
Asimismo, antes de la expansión del capitalismo, en el resto del mundo no
occidental ocurría algo parecido; otros proyectos civilizatorios, como es el caso de
los asentamientos prehispánicos en el continente americano, que a pesar de las
diferencias con la Europa feudal, mantenían un tipo de organización comunitaria
que – pese a las relaciones de dominación existentes – garantizaba ciertos derechos
colectivos sobre los medios de producción para la reproducción de la vida.
Indudablemente las consecuencias del despliegue del sistema capitalista desde
el siglo XVI hasta nuestros días han sido desastrosas para incontables
colectividades, no obstante, tal y como sostiene Silvia Federici, las mujeres han
sido las más afectadas, principalmente porque tienen mayor intervención en los
procesos de reproducción
Ellas son las que están en primera línea, tienen que ver qué van a comer los niños, que sea algo bueno, que no los vaya a matar. Segundo, las mujeres han tenido tradicionalmente menor
acceso al salario que los hombres. Entonces para ellas, el acceso a los bienes naturales es particularmente importante y estratégico (Linsalata y Navarro, 2014).
Este aspecto queda claramente expuesto en el testimonio de Eva Castellanos, integrante del Consejo de Pueblos en Defensa del Río Verde (COPUDEVER) contra
la construcción de una presa en su comunidad Paso de la Reina en Oaxaca
yo recuerdo antes cuando no había agua potable el río era para nosotras indispensable porque
aquí veníamos a lavar, veníamos a lavar la ropa, los trastes, a pescar camarones, que sí los
hombres también lo hacen pero ellos lo hacen solamente pues en los tiempos libres o porque
tienen otro tipo de trabajo, pero ya la mujer es un sentir completamente diferente, porque
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nosotras estamos en la cocina, las mujeres aquí están pensando, ¿qué le voy a preparar a mi
marido?, ¿qué le voy a preparar a mis hijos? y sí, como que es un cariño diferente con el río,
porque [...] cuando no había agua potable, era como un cariño más especial al río, y... porque
de repente veníamos aquí con nuestros hijos o venimos con toda la familia a compartir un
rato, tal vez a comer a divertirnos, y sí es una conexión totalmente yo creo que diferente con
la mujer (Eva Castellanos, 2013).
De ahí que lo común, ha estado históricamente relacionado con las economías
de sustento,
en las que las personas trabajan con el fin de proporcionarse directamente a sí mismas las
condiciones necesarias para mantener sus vidas. Se trata de la clase de economía en la que la
producción y reproducción humanas son primeramente posibles. En concreto, es en la
economía de las mujeres donde, debido a la división patriarcal del trabajo, tiene lugar la
reproducción de la sociedad. La labor de las mujeres proporciona sustento y apoyo a todas las
actividades humanas, incluidas las más visibles de la economía dominada por el mercado
(Shiva, 2006, p. 25).
Así, el cercenamiento de lo común y la violencia hacia la naturaleza, implica
necesariamente una crisis de la reproducción social y una embestida contra las
mujeres y su capacidad de proporcionar apoyo y sustento a las actividades
comunitarias.
De modo que, sí las relaciones sociales centradas en lo común son imprescindibles para garantizar formas alternativas de reproducción de la vida, es menester del
capital negarlas, subsumirlas o eliminarlas para garantizar su expansión y acumulación sin inconvenientes. Desde este punto de vista, lo común adquiere profundo
sentido si se piensa como categoría crítica, que siguiendo a Werner Bonefeld, se
trataría de “un concepto social que denota la existencia pervertida de las relaciones
humanas” (Bonefeld, 2001, p. 158), lo que nos lleva a colocar la lucha contra el
capital en el centro del análisis, en tanto lo común existe como negación del capital
y su materialidad y reiteración es expresión de la inestabilidad de las relaciones
capitalistas incapaces de mercantilizarlo todo.
De tal forma que lo común como categoría crítica abona en una perspectiva
interesada en alumbrar dos aspectos; la fragilidad e incapacidad totalizante del
capital, expresada en el antagonismo histórico e inmanente entre lo común y las
formas variadas del despojo capitalista. Y, por otro lado, en la insistencia y
perseverancia de las relaciones sociales orientadas a cultivar y regenerar lo común
o aquello que se comparte, como estrategia cooperativa de reproducción de la vida
bajo regulaciones no enteramente sometidas a la lógica mercantil y/o estatal.
En este sentido, tratemos de indagar a través de los testimonios de algunas
comuneras que participan en luchas en defensa de sus territorios, los sentidos,
significados y prácticas colectivas orientadas a la producción de lo común para la
reproducción de la vida humana y no humana.
Mujeres comuneras contra el despojo capitalista
Pese a la larga historia de dominación y explotación capitalista sobre el mundo
natural y humano, lo común se produce y reproduce en el amplio y denso espectro
de la vida, en buena medida, por las actividades de cuidado y sustento que generan
las mujeres en beneficio de las colectividades. En otras investigaciones hemos
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observado que estas capacidades femeninas de cuidado y recreación de lo común se
potencian y juegan un papel central en la conformación de un poder comunitario
para la defensa del territorio ante el despojo capitalista, hecho que es especialmente
visible en los momentos más explosivos, explícitos y conscientes del conflicto.4
Sobre esto, hay por lo menos dos aspectos sobre los que nos interesa reflexionar en
este texto: por un lado, las formas en que las mujeres recrean y reconocen su
intervención en lo político; y por otro lado, su participación en el ámbito
productivo y reproductivo para el cuidado de la vida.
El primer aspecto está relacionado con la participación de las mujeres en la
política comunitaria, incluyendo inéditas intervenciones en espacios que
tradicionalmente habían estado dominados por los hombres. Se trata de procesos de
subjetivación en marcha que coexisten conflictivamente entre los nuevos modos de
relación social y la propia tradición, que en algunos casos se encuentra atravesada
por una lógica de dominación que busca perpetuarse. A continuación, el testimonio
de Estela Chávez del Consejo de Pueblos en Defensa del Río Verde
(COPUDEVER) y de Anabela Carlón de la tribu Yaqui contra el despojo de agua
del río Yaqui, provocado por la construcción del acueducto Independencia que
tiene como objetivo cubrir la demanda hídrica del desarrollo industrial de la ciudad
de Hermosillo, Sonora
Sobre la participación de las mujeres, con todo este movimiento aquí en el pueblo todavía
existen muchos hombres machistas que dicen que las mujeres no tienen ni voz ni voto en una
asamblea general del pueblo, ya se venía discriminando a las mujeres, pero este año y con este
movimiento pues ya abiertamente está declarado de que las mujeres tienen derecho a
participar en una asamblea en la toma de decisiones o se le está dando ese espacio para que
participen de la reunión y en adelante las mujeres puedan ocupar cargos, pueda ocupar un
cargo de policía municipal, pueda ser una secretaria, una tesorera de la agencia. Ya se abrió el
espacio, hay que cuidarlo y que la mujer también haga valer su derecho, que exija, que como
mujer es ciudadana y tiene todos los derechos de los varones, fue un movimiento que se lo
ganó (Entrevista a Jiménez y Chávez, COPUDEVER, 2010).
En cosas importantes es una toma de decisión de los hombres, como si las decisiones que
tomaran los hombres no les fueran a afectar a las mujeres [...] Y más que nada recordarles que
las mujeres también lucharon en la revolución, igual como ellos. Entonces nosotras les
recordamos a las gentes, a los hombres, en su mayoría los que se ponen como cerrados a otras
opiniones, que también tenemos derechos. Porque los derechos los ganaron nuestros jóvenes y
nuestras mujeres durante las luchas por el territorio (Anabela Carlón, 2013).
Como parte de las formas de intervención en lo político, hemos notado una
particular sensibilidad de las mujeres en los esfuerzos de recomposición
comunitaria ante la ruptura del tejido social por conflictos anteriores o bien por las
políticas de despojo de los Estados y del capital. A este respecto, presentamos el
siguiente testimonio de la Agrupación un Salto de Vida, organización comunitaria
que desde hace quince años ha emprendido una batalla por denunciar las causas
que han provocado la contaminación del río Santiago, al mismo tiempo que se ha
empeñado en restaurar sus capacidades autónomas para el sustento
4
Este argumento lo he desarrollado con mayor amplitud en mi tesis de doctorado Luchas por lo común: antagonismo social contra el despojo capitalista de los bienes naturales en México, en proceso
de publicación por la BUAP y Bajo Tierra Ediciones.
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el problema de la contaminación del agua y la contaminación del territorio en el municipio no
sólo causa la enfermedad y muerte, ha desmembrado a toda una sociedad, ha roto el tejido
social, ha roto nuestras tradiciones, nuestras costumbres, nuestra identidad, nos ha vuelto
gente más pobre, más insensible... nos ha hecho muchas cosas. Pero creemos que si el río se
reestructura, como sociedad también nos estaremos reestructurando, entonces trabajamos muy
fuerte en ese tejido social [...] tejiendo redes (Sofía Enciso, 2013).
En este testimonio destaca la forma tan particular de pensar la relación con la
naturaleza, en la que se percibe una búsqueda por no reiterar la separación que el
despojo capitalista ha producido. Tal y como Negri lo señala: no se trata de un
modo de explotación, pero tampoco de custodia, sino de interacción, reciprocidad y
cohabitación en un mundo común (Negri, 2011, p. 10). Un tema que para la
Agrupación Un salto de Vida, ha sido sumamente complicado, debido a que, desde
el sentido común de los habitantes, el río Santiago se percibe como una fuente de
enfermedad y muerte
esta crisis (producida por la contaminación del río) realmente es como el espejo de lo que
somos, y nos ha tenido que convocar el río hacia adentro, es decir, tuvimos que meter al río
Santiago a nuestras venas y darnos cuenta de que estaba taponeado que está arrepresado, que
está ensuciado y que hasta que no logremos destaponar nuestras venas personales, colectivas,
podrá seguir fluyendo nuestro río. Es una locura de llevar el mundo externo hacia adentro.
Nos ha evocado el río porque principalmente descubrimos ser parte de él, no sabíamos que
éramos parte de él, mucho tiempo la gente lo odiaba, lo maldecía y ahí fue cuando
empezamos a hablar de no maldecirlo, de reverenciarlo y de considerarlo un par enfermo,
inclusive de hablarle (Graciela Enciso, 2013).
En este mismo aspecto, en el siguiente testimonio Anabela Carlón de la tribu
Yaqui reflexiona sobre la diferencia entre la racionalidad instrumental del
capitalismo, que disuelve a la naturaleza en una mercancía para ser explotada
ilimitadamente. Y por otro lado, el principio de interdependencia y reciprocidad
como base de la reproducción de la vida humana y no humana
Quizás por eso a nosotros, a los yaquis, nos llaman por decir flojos, que no sirven para nada,
etcétera; pero no es por eso, sino porque no tenemos esa ambición de sobreexplotar un
recurso. Entonces eso lo ven de esa manera, entonces es mejor ser flojo, ¿no?, a que
sobreexplotar nuestro territorio. Esa es la comparación que yo hago, yo lo veo positivo, no le
hace que nos llamen de esa manera. Al cabo depende de quién lo vea. En los ojos del
economista ambicioso, así lo vas a ver. Pero ya viéndolo desde un punto de vista de nosotros,
no es cierto, no necesitamos sobreexplotar, sólo necesitamos tomar lo que es necesario de la
naturaleza (Anabela Carlón, 2013).
Y es que las mujeres han sido guardianas de lo común, sus capacidades de
cuidado y sustento se relacionan con la conservación y actualización de
conocimientos tradicionales, saberes y remedios médicos. La mujer comunera es
campesina, partera, hierbera, tejedora de memoria. Y aunque predominantemente
no cuentan con la atribución legal, ni consuetudinaria para poseer o usufructuar la
tierra, cuentan con veladas, pero fundamentales capacidades de intervención en lo
productivo, además de la trascendente actividad de cuidado y recreación de lo
común intangible, como es el caso de la memoria y el conocimiento tradicional.
En otras investigaciones hemos documentado que el control de las formas en las
que se hereda y construye la memoria puede derivar en una estrategia de resistencia
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ante el despojo capitalista de los territorios5. Los lazos con el territorio tienden a
potenciarse con lo que Martínez Alier (2006) denomina lenguajes de valoración no
mercantiles, que desde nuestra perspectiva, actúan como formas culturales activas
de los de abajo que se nutren de la experiencia histórica de vida en un territorio
determinado. Estos lenguajes en ocasiones, se construyen a partir de vínculos de
larga duración con el territorio, tejidos por historias que se conectan entre sí a partir
de la memoria colectiva. En el siguiente testimonio, es de destacarse la labor de las
mujeres de la Agrupación un Salto de Vida en el rescate de la memoria comunitaria
y su historia con el Río para visibilizar las problemáticas de devastación socioambiental
“yo creo que la primera relación con el río fue a través de la historia y de la historia no
documentada, de la historia que estamos tratando de recuperar, de la historia reclamada [...] la
historia no documentada, la historia contada por los viejos y por los no tan viejos que todavía
gozaron el río, es lo que nos hizo entrar en esa dinámica de querer reconstituir lo perdido
(Graciela González, 2013).
Esta suerte de conciencia colectiva busca redimir las luchas pasadas a partir de
la apropiación de esas historias negadas a la luz del presente. Se trata de una
resignificación de la historia para comprender la realidad dominante (Tischler,
2005, p. 15).
Por otro lado, las mujeres también han intervenido en la recuperación y
reconfiguración de sistemas de saber a contrapelo de la ciencia dominante. Tal es el
caso de los aprendizajes de epidemiología popular que las comunidades van
adquiriendo, sin la ayuda de expertos y gobiernos, a partir de la reunión de datos e
información científica para comprender las enfermedades que padecen (CEECEC,
s.a., p. 145). Esto se presenta en aquellas comunidades que ya enfrentan algún
grado de afectación o sufrimiento ambiental y que, ante la impunidad y negligencia
del poder, requieren de capacidades sociales de autocuidado y diagnóstico común.
De allí creo que es fundamental empezar a curarnos entre nosotros, que sería la otra forma
alternativa de estar bien, ahorita ya empezamos a incursionar en la alimentación, pero nos
falta la rama de la medicina [...] y/o empezar a enseñar a las mamás brujas a hacer medicina,
para que puedan curar a sus niños. Entonces es como que ahorita estamos en esa otra visión
de empezar a regresar que dice "nuestro pasado será nuestro presente" y a buscar que la
cocina [...] sea la fuente de vida de nuestras familias; alimentarnos en físico y en emocional y
todo en nuestras cocinas (Graciela González, 2013).
En este renglón, tal y como lo ha desarrollado Sivia Federici, las mujeres son
agricultoras de la subsistencia, siendo central su intervención en la producción de
alimentos y en general en el cuidado y regeneración de las economías de
subsistencia. Destacan los trabajos que documentan la importante participación de
las mujeres en la soberanía alimentaria, actividad que se remonta por ejemplo, al
cuidado ancestral de las semillas nativas, un principio básico para la reproducción
de la vida (Fernández, 2013).
Las mujeres somos las encargadas del huerto familiar [...] Y cuando uno no tiene para comer,
pues tiene su huerto, que muchas veces es para hacer la semilla para la siguiente (temporada)
5
Navarro, Mina Lorena y Sergio Tischler. (2011) “Tiempo y memoria en las socio-ambientales en
México”. Revista Desacatos, 37.
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o para compartirla, intercambiarla, pero sí es realmente muy difícil actualmente con esto de
que casi no hay agua (en el río Yaqui) (Anabela Carlón, 2013).
A modo de cierre, podemos decir que ante las políticas de despojo del capital,
se vienen activando o generando procesos de lucha orientados a la producción de lo
común para la reproducción de la vida humana y no humana, siendo fundamental
en esta tarea colectiva el hacer de las mujeres comuneras. Son experiencias que
además de resistir -en medio de profundas dificultades-, buscan imaginar,
experimentar y fortalecer modos de autorregulación social basados en la
solidaridad y la sostenibilidad para hacer común la vida.
Yo creo que pertenecer a la organización COPUDEVER es una responsabilidad muy fuerte, el
simple hecho de decir yo estoy a favor de la vida a favor de la naturaleza, yo sí pienso que es
una [...] pues algo súper fuerte desde mi corazón desde mi propio sentir desde mi propio
pensar, el decir pertenezco a COPUDEVER pero también decir es un orgullo estar dentro de
COPUDEVER. Que otras personas sepan lo que estamos haciendo aquí, defender el río,
defender la vida no nada más de los que vivimos aquí en Paso de la Reina sino de los que
viven río arriba o que viven río abajo, porque sabemos que es algo bueno la defensa del río
(Eva Castellanos, 2013).
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Mujeres indígenas: Historias de la reproducción de la vida en
Guatemala. Una reflexión a partir de la visita de Silvia Federici
de
Gladys Tzul Tzul
!
A manera de homenaje
Doña Jovita Cardona fue una niña mam que se crio en una finca cafetalera en el
departamento de San Marcos, Guatemala. Desde muy pequeña se encargaba de
preparar la comida para los trabajadores, al mismo tiempo que escuchaba y participaba en las conversaciones sobre las injusticias contra las que sus familiares luchaban. Cuando tenía 12 años se fue a la ciudad de Guatemala para laborar como trabajadora doméstica en un hogar ladino. Ahí le imponían una jornada completa de
trabajo sin descanso y la obligaban a higienizarse constantemente porque “no podía
preparar la comida y tocar las cosas de la casa si no estaba bañada”.
Con ella escuché las historias no contadas en la escuela y la universidad. Los relatos de ella me develaron cómo la estructura racial-económica operaba en un país
como Guatemala y cómo esta estructura se cristalizaba sobre los cuerpos de las
mujeres indígenas. También me contó que, a fines de los años treinta, las familias
que trabajaban en la finca se rebelaron contra los caporales porque no les pagaban
la jornada tal y como la habían pactado. Los trabajadores decidieron volver a sus
comunidades y las mujeres que trabajaban en el servicio doméstico dejaron de preparar la comida y regresaron a sus pueblos: “No se fueron todos, pero ese día colapsaron todas las actividades de la finca”, me dijo.
Si bien esto ocurrió en San Marcos, no se puede negar que esto pasaba y sigue
pasando en toda Latinoamérica, donde han sido las mujeres indígenas las que se
encargan de las labores de la reproducción. Ellas han sostenido la vida de las familias que vivían como mozos en las fincas, en los hogares capitalinos y también en
las comunidades.
Doña Jovita es mi abuela materna. El 15 de febrero cumplió 90 años y en honor
a ella escribo este texto. Le agradezco haberme ayudado a aprender palabras, sentimientos y discursos de las mujeres indígenas para analizar el funcionamiento ra* Maya k`ich´e de Guatemala. Doctorante de Sociología en el Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades – Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla. Su investigación doctoral se propone elaborar una genealogía de los sistemas de gobierno indígenas en Chuimek´ena. Participa en procesos de
lucha de mujeres indígenas por la defensa de la vida y las tierras comunales. Es funadora, junto a
otros tres colegas, de la Comunidad de Estudios Mayas que reflexiona sobre la historia y la política
indígena.
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cial-económico capitalista en Guatemala. Ella, junto con mi madre y mis tías, me
mostró la vitalidad de organizar la vida comunitaria en la que crecí.
Comencé este texto de esta manera porque me permite poner en el centro una de
las construcciones teóricas más radicales de la pensadora italiana Silvia Federici:
analizar el funcionamiento del capital desde el punto de vista de las mujeres –
indígenas –; es decir, desde el punto de vista de la reproducción. Subrayo lo indígena sin intención de convertirla en una categoría de identificación cerrada y sustancial; mi interés consiste en exponer que la labor de reproducción, en sociedades
que tienen que organizarse en un contexto donde el racismo funciona como una
máquina económico-política, tiene una acentuada fuerza dominante en la vida y el
cuerpo de las mujeres indígenas. Las relaciones coloniales que se construyeron
desde el momento de la invasión española, jerarquizaron y establecieron órdenes y
privilegios raciales en detrimento de las trabajadoras indígenas. Por ejemplo, mi
abuela me contó que el contratista de la finca pactaba un precio de pago diferenciado a los “naturales” (indígenas) y a los kaxlanes (no indígenas). No le pagaban a la
mujer indígena porque era la ayuda del marido, pero sí pagaban a la mujer kaxlana
porque era considerada una trabajadora. “¿Por qué?”, le preguntaba a mi abuela.
Ella me respondía: “Porque somos naturales”. A mí esa respuesta me enojaba mucho.
Cuando mi abuela cumplió 22 años se casó con un comerciante k’iche’ de Totonicapán que formaba parte de las tramas de familias que comerciaban telas y especies. Estas redes de comerciantes indígenas, que se extendían por casi todo el territorio guatemalteco, comerciaban por la Costa Sur, las Verapaces, el Petén, Esquipulas y la ciudad capital. Don Pablo Andrés Tzul Lacán-mi abuelo -, perteneció y
participó en los sistemas de gobierno comunal en Totonicapán; es decir, a esas históricas y potentes tramas de parentesco que mantenían y organizaban la tierra de
forma comunal y que formaron sistemas de gobierno para gestionar y regular comunalmente el uso de la tierra, el agua y el bosque. Mi abuela se mudó a vivir con
él y se encontró con otras formas de organización de la vida; un sistema donde de
nuevo las mujeres eran quienes gestionaban todas las labores de la reproducción,
criaban a los niños, lavaban la ropa, organizaban las cosechas y las siembras colectivas, coordinaban las grandes fiestas de casamientos y preparaban las grandes comidas cuando tenían que enterrar a los muertos. Mi abuela recordaba largas jornadas para sembrar árboles y para mantener nacimientos de agua.
La tierra es la base material para organizar la vida. Mi abuela siempre lo acentuó y destacó que la gran diferencia de lo que había vivido en su niñez, es que ahora tenían tierra donde cosechar, había tierra comunal. Con alegría en los ojos me
decía que le quedaba un poco más de tiempo para salir a pastar animales; así como
para bordar y tejer. Esto, es la reproducción.
Ciertamente las mujeres habitaban la tierra y hacían uso de todo lo que había en
ella, aunque no podían participar en la producción de la decisión colectiva para la
regulación y la gestión del uso común, este es un hecho que debe ser problematizado, porque es en la reproducción y en la decisión colectiva donde se juega nuestra
vida y la continuidad de nuestros proyectos colectivos y de lucha contra el capital.
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lidad femenina, las mujeres siempre confrontarán al capital y al Estado con menor
poder que los hombres y en condiciones de extrema vulnerabilidad económica y
social (Sivia Federici, 2013, p. 73).
Historias Entretejidas
En las sociedades indígenas de Guatemala circulan y se entretejen historias de
brujas, parteras y curanderas. Se sabe de mujeres que envenenaban la comida de
los patrones e instaban a sus compañeros y familiares para que se rebelaran contra
el orden de dominación en las fincas. Mujeres comerciantes, tejedoras, las que elaboran el aguardiente, las que reforestan bosques completos, las que organizan las
siembras y las cosechas colectivas, las que luchan contra la expropiación de la tierra, las que protegen a sus hijos en la guerra; mujeres que producían y producen en
común saberes y rebeliones de las maneras más creativas y disruptivas. Son ellas
las que han reproducido la vida. Son a ellas a las que matan en las rebeliones y
criminalizan hoy día.
Como analiza Silvia Federici, los cuerpos de las mujeres, su trabajo, sus poderes
sexuales y reproductivos fueron colocados bajo el control del Estado y transformados en recursos económicos. En este orden, nos dice la autora, esta división sexual
del trabajo se ha venido renovando constantemente y por eso el ataque a las propiedades comunales y la intervención del Estado (instigada por el Banco Mundial)
en la reproducción de la fuerza de trabajo, ha tenido el objetivo de regular las tasas
de procreación y con ello reducir el tamaño de una población que era considerada
demasiado exigente e indisciplinada (Silvia Federici, 2011).
Hoy día en Guatemala se despliega un ataque y cercamiento a las tierras comunales a partir de los proyectos extractivos. A continuación presento un cuadro que
resume la cantidad de licencias de exploración y explotación minera. Casi todas se
encuentran asentadas en territorios comunales indígenas del altiplano occidental y
las Verapaces del nororiente del país. En estos territorios se han reactivado las luchas comunitarias, donde las mujeres participan de manera central en la defensa de
las tierras y en el saboteo de las actividades de las minas.
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Listado de Licencias de exploración y explotación minera en Guatemala
Exploración
Explotación
Total
Materiales de
construcción
4
113
117
Minerales metálicos
75
32
107
Minerales no metálicos
7
137
144
TOTAL
86
282
368
(Fuente: Ministerio de Energía y Minas (MEM). www.mem.gob.gt consultado el 19 de julio de 2013)
Las formas de organización política para la defensa y la recuperación de las tierras comunales han producido creativas y plurales estrategias políticas. En San
Juan Sacatepéquez (Chimaltenango), las comunidades organizaron turnos para vigilar permanentemente los caminos a partir de la instalación de puestos de control
comunitario, y así evitar el paso del ejército y del personal de una cementera que se
pretende edificar en la tierra de 12 comunidades. En La Puya, las mujeres construyen discursos políticos de lucha y también organizan servicios religiosos, rosarios,
misas y cultos en la entrada del lugar donde quieren excavar la mina; así como la
planificación de comidas colectivas y el traslado al sitio donde quieren instalar una
hidroeléctrica. Las mujeres se llevaron sus cuadros y sus esculturas de la virgen y
de los santos, y rezan ahí todas las noches con sus hijos y toda la comunidad. En
Barillas, Huehuetenango, las mujeres y los hombres fundaron La Resistencia, lugar
donde se turnan para vivir y cocinar; vigilan el territorio y, desde ahí, han creado
un discurso contra las hidroeléctricas. Las comunidades circunvecinas acuerpan y
coordinan actividades con las comunidades que luchan, como es el caso de Santa
Eulalia, Huehuetenango y San Mateo Ixtatán, que cerraron sus caminos para evitar
que el ejército pasara a Barillas. En Totonicapán y Nebaj, mujeres y hombres producen una serie de actividades para discutir y construir un discurso político en
grandes asambleas regionales y a través de festivales de arte; son discursos que
construyen sentido común contra el despojo de las tierras comunales y contra el
genocidio.
La creatividad y la imaginación son amplias y complejas, y dan origen a estrategias singulares, por ejemplo, las mujeres se organizaron para tumbar los postes de
cableado eléctrico de una mina. Llegaron con sus hachas y tiraron los postes. Se
decidió que solo participarían mujeres de edad avanzada porque no tenían docu-
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mentos de identidad, y esto haría más difíciles los procesos formales de acusación
contra ellas.
La participación de las mujeres ha sido decisiva en gran medida porque saben
que lo que está en juego es el uso del agua, del bosque, de la tierra, de los cultivos
de subsistencia; en suma, la gestión de la vida cotidiana. Frente a estos actos de resistencia, una embestida de represión se ha desplegado. En lo que va del año, los
órganos de justicia han dictado órdenes de captura a quienes defienden los territorios, cientos de personas que luchan están siendo judicializadas.
¿Cómo cercan las tierras comunales? A continuación presento dos ejemplos de
lo que ocurre en Totonicapán. En 2001 el Banco Mundial recomendó al gobierno
de Guatemala que elevara la carga fiscal y tributaria; esto dio pie a una propuesta
para gravar un nuevo impuesto sobre las tierras, dentro de las cuales quedan comprendidas las tierras comunales. El objeto de este impuesto – al igual que en el
tiempo del censo enfitéutico que operó en por los años de 18306 – es declarar el registro y la titularidad de la tierra y con ello obligar al deslindamiento del título comunal de la tierra. Por esos años en Totonicapán se realizó uno de los levantamiento más grandes, el pueblo completo dijo que no quería pagar y se decidió bloquear
las carreteras. El gobierno declaró un estado de sitio.
El segundo ejemplo ocurre el 4 de octubre de 2012, cuando el Estado guatemalteco masacró a seis de nuestros compañeros comunitarios cuando se desarrolló un
levantamiento contra la pretensión constitucional de declarar a las tierras como nacionales anulando los sistemas de gobierno comunal indígena y, además, establecer
jurídicamente a las fuerzas combinadas – ejército y policía – para que actuaran según las necesidades nacionales y las que el presidente precisara. Entendimos claramente que declarar las tierras como nacionales borraba de tajo el régimen de propiedad comunal en el cual vivimos; si se dice que hay una sola nación y una única
forma de organización, nuestros sistemas de gobierno serán también declarados no
lícitos. Organizamos un levantamiento y el ejército reprimió y asesinó a seis de los
nuestros e hirió a más de cincuenta. Las mujeres participaron centralmente en la
organización de las marchas, se encargaron de la alimentación de sus hijos y sus
esposos, compartieron e intercambiaron sus alimentos con las mujeres y los hombres que participaban, fueron las que apoyaron y cuidaron a las personas heridas.
Otras de las grandes luchas de las mujeres indígenas ha sido la batalla contra la
violencia estatal en el tiempo de la civil guatemalteca y también después de ella.
Cabe mencionar aquellos esfuerzos de las mujeres indígenas por buscar a sus hijos,
maridos y familiares desaparecidos, masacrados y enterrados en fosas clandestinas,
resultado de una guerra de trescientos mil muertos. En el año 1980 se contaban
cuarenta mil desaparecidos y estas mujeres, que se declararon viudas de la guerra,
se organizaron para reclamar los cuerpos de sus maridos. Se nombraron a sí mismas como Comité Nacional de Viudas de Guatemala (CONAVIGUA), fueron ellas
las que llegaron a los cuarteles militares a reclamar a sus maridos, las que poste6
El censo enfitéutico era una figura jurídica mediante la cual se promovía la propiedad privada de la
tierra, este mecanismo operaba de la siguiente manera: se establecía un precio nominal a una determinada porción de tierra y la persona que se comprometiera a pagar anualmente tazas que iban del 2
al 3% de su valor conseguía el usufructo de tales tierras. Este mecanismo funciono desde los años de
1930.
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riormente exigieron de forma contundente que sus hijos no fueran reclutados, de
manera forzosa, en el ejército, y que hoy día reactualizan sus luchas contra las hidroeléctricas en esas regiones donde están los cementerios clandestinos. En suma,
son las mujeres las que han liderado los esfuerzos para colectivizar el trabajo reproductivo y para protegerse mutuamente de la violencia estatal.
¿Por qué pensar desde la reproducción?
a) Porque pone a la vida en el centro del análisis político. Si pensamos desde las
formas de gestionar y reproducir la vida cotidiana tendremos una óptica ampliada
para mirar nuestras historias, nuestras luchas y nuestras estrategias para plantear,
producir y organizar lo común. Esto habilitaría un hacer crítico-político en común
que pone en entredicho aquellas interpretaciones que dicen que las mujeres indígenas son únicamente víctimas y que sus acciones de luchas son pre-políticas.
b) Porque para acercarse a las políticas indígenas es preciso hacerlo desde la reproducción. Nosotras dentro de los pueblos indígenas sabemos, como experiencia
concreta, que nuestra existencia y lucha contra el capitalismo ha sido construida
desde lo común. Vivimos porque organizamos un sistema de gobierno comunal para gestionar, regular y gobernar el agua, la tierra y el bosque. Nuestras historias están contenidas por una larga cuenta de acontecimientos colectivos que han construido caminos políticos de lucha donde centralmente se disputan los medios materiales de la reproducción.
c) Porque es urgente pensar las formas y los lugares desde donde luchamos las
mujeres indígenas en el seno de los sistemas de gobierno comunal. Si vivimos en
relaciones sociales que producen comunidad, entonces tenemos que pensar con seriedad que debemos organizar y crear formas de responsabilidad y trabajo compartido entre mujeres y hombres, porque el cuidado no tiene que ser a costa de la salud
de las mujeres. También tenemos que producir maneras en las que participemos
plenamente no solo en el uso de las tierras comunales, sino también en el proceso
de la producción de la decisión sobre lo colectivo. Porque ahí se juega la permanencia de nuestra existencia a largo plazo.
d) Porque hace posible un lenguaje más amplio. Dejo esto como punto final,
pero no menos importante. Las mujeres indígenas tuvimos que nombrar el mundo,
las relaciones y los objetos en el castellano masculino que se pretende universal,
siempre sintiéndonos incómodas porque muchas veces nuestras luchas contra los
embates no las sentimos contenidas ni en los lenguajes ni en los actos más conocidos; esto no significó que olvidáramos la cuestión fundamental de nombrarnos como queríamos. Con las palabras de Silvia Federici me siento acompañada en este
proceso de explicarnos las luchas y la vida.
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Calibán y la bruja: ¡una lucha contra el olvido!
de
Elia Méndez García
!
Las brujas siempre han sido mujeres que se atrevieron a ser valerosas, agresivas, inteligentes,
no conformistas, curiosas, independientes, liberadas sexualmente, revolucionarias […]
WITCH vive y ríe en cada mujer. Ella es la parte libre de cada una de nosotras […] Eres una
Bruja por el hecho de ser mujer, indómita, airada, alegre e inmortal (Morgan, 1970, pp. 605606).
Mediante el olvido, el sistema capitalista hace mirar al ser humano hacia el modelo de bienestar que conviene al mercado. No recordar quién es, de dónde viene,
de quién es heredero, permite el desarraigo, permite olvidar, y guiar el deseo hacia
los horizontes del progreso impuesto y difundido por el sistema capitalista. Sin
embargo, en realidad no se olvida, nada se olvida, queda el recuerdo en espera de
su momento, en espera del momento de la crisis de las promesas del desarrollo, en
que ante el vacío y la falsedad, el sujeto por fin gritará, por fin buscará respuestas y
las encontrará en los recuerdos de su historia.
Ella le despejará la mirada, se aclarará entonces la fantasía progresista. Así,
además, el sujeto de lucha, superando el dolor de la realidad que descubre, creará
las alternativas propias, con dificultades porque el camino está en constante construcción, en constante duda, en constantes preguntas, no obstante, avanza.
En este ensayo intento poner en diálogo algunos aspectos relevantes del pensamiento de Silvia Federici, principalmente vertidos en el texto Calibán y la bruja
desde la mirada en tensión entre olvidar y recordar. Parto de pensar el olvido como
un proceso desde el poder que pretende borrar las raíces, las creencias y los deseos
de los pueblos sometidos.
Procura olvidar la historia propia, sus actores, ideas, luchas en beneficio de la
dominación. Este mecanismo recorre muchos aspectos de la vida social. De aquí
que una forma de lucha en contra del olvido es el recuerdo. Recordar proviene del
latín cor, cordis, corazón, y de recordari-re, una vez más; es decir, volver a pasar
la experiencia por el corazón.
* Licenciada en Lengua y literatura hispánicas por la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México,
Maestra en Lingüística Aplicada por la Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca y doctorante
en Sociología en el Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades de la Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla. Profesora-investigadora en el Instituto Politécnico Nacional.
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Volver a sentir el dolor, la humillación, la muerte, la violencia de la explotación; así como la alegría, la fuerza, la dignidad de las luchas pasadas, permiten a
tantos cuerpos sociales permanecer y actualizar su existencia.
Olvido histórico
El despojo histórico7 ha sido la estrategia por excelencia de la dominación. Contar la historia a modo para conseguir un fin específico, resulta en una suerte de imposición de argumentos, de razones, que legitiman atropellos, muchas veces violentos, finalmente es imposición de olvido. Un ejemplo muy interesante que señala
Federicci (2004, p. 23) es sobre el conveniente olvido auto-inducido de los historiadores sobre la existencia de la esclavitud europea durante los siglos XVI y XVII
(y después), del cual Salvatore Bono argumenta que se debe a la “Pelea por África”, ya que la justificación fue precisamente una misión para poner fin a la esclavitud en el continente africano y no era posible que las élites europeas admitieran
emplear esclavos en Europa, la cuna de la democracia. La autora emplea el término
auto-inducido, que en realidad señala una actitud muy conveniente para los historiadores citados. De esta forma, quienes ostentan el poder económico pueden también imponer su lectura de la historia, precisamente porque han empleado el lenguaje como recurso para dejar sentada esta versión en los textos históricos.
¿Cuántas lecturas de la realidad se nos han impuesto? Calibán y la bruja nos
abre los ojos a una historia que, como señala la autora en el prefacio: “no nos habían enseñado en la escuela, pero que resulta decisiva para nuestra educación”.
(Federici, 2004, p. 17). Las clases de historia que en México recibí sobre los actos
de la Santa Inquisición fueron tan acríticas y planas, siempre buscando la reproducción memorística de fechas y eventos, que por supuesto, ya olvidé. Confieso
que ni siquiera las historias coloniales, que tanto me gustaban, me llevaron a cuestionarme la profunda gravedad y consecuencias de la quema de brujas. Tampoco
las exhibiciones de los aparatos y técnicas de torturas, que se han hecho una visita
clásica en el Museo de la Tortura y la Pena Capital8, me llevaron a cuestionarme
más allá del horror de infligir tanto dolor a otra persona. El argumento principal y
general era la herejía, la apostasía, todas las faltas en torno de la fe cristiana, pero
nunca tuvimos los estudiantes la posibilidad de cuestionar ¿qué fines ocultos estaban bajo esos pecados religiosos? ¿Qué relación había entre la acusación de brujería a indígenas y el despojo de su territorio para el avance de la conquista y su consecuente imposición de la dominación europea? ¿Qué importancia tuvieron estos
hechos por los cuales un Papa tras varios siglos, pidió simbólicamente “perdón”?
7
Empleo el término despojo histórico a partir de la propuesta de despojo múltiple propuesto por Mina
Navarro Trujillo como categoría crítica donde el capital necesita negar, subsumir o eliminar relaciones sociales centradas en lo común que garanticen formas alternativas de reproducción de la vida, así
como desmantelar y expropiar las capacidades políticas de autodeterminación de los entramados comunitarios. Así, el despojo de la historia resta las capacidades políticas y mina las relaciones sociales
que permiten la reproducción de la vida. Luchas por lo común. Antagonismo social contra el despojo
capitalista de los bienes naturales en México. Tesis doctoral en Sociología ICSYH-BUAP 2012.
8
Este museo está en el Centro Histórico de la Ciudad de México, donde se asentó el Antiguo Palacio
de Inquisición, posteriormente fue la Escuela de Medicina.
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¿Qué intentaba reparar? Y aún más oculto en esta maraña histórica escolar, preguntarnos ¿qué consecuencias tuvieron para las mujeres, las torturas y los asesinatos
atroces de la quema de brujas? Y además, cuestionándolo con su vínculo temporal
con el desarrollo del sistema capitalista de producción.
Contra el olvido, recordar
Una de las capas gruesas de olvido que cubre los manuales escolares de historia,
es pensar la Edad Media como un mundo estático, donde el poder es concentrado
en la realeza y en la jerarquía católica, y cuya organización productiva radica en el
binomio señor feudal- servidumbre, procesos continuos durante siglos… aquí el
olvido histórico, con el cual se ha pretendido cubrir una lucha de clases implacable,
como Silvia la describe, en que están registrados continuos asesinatos de administradores, ataques a los castillos de los señores feudales, litigios por limitar sus abusos, por fijar cargas, reducir tributos, y tantas otras formas de resistencia que se
gestaron en este periodo que de estático tiene poquísimo. El esfuerzo por ocultar,
por invisibilizar la fuerza colectiva que lucha por formas más satisfactorias de reproducción material de la vida: una lucha por la dignidad.
En este sentido, recordar aquello que ha estado ahí, encubierto, trastocado, manipulado, elidido, casi borrado…nos proporciona un piso, una plataforma para ser
capaces de mirarlo. En Calibán y la bruja está el recuerdo vivo del dolor de las
mujeres torturadas y asesinadas; horror ante el cual una no puede pasar sin sentir,
sin que el corazón se acongoje, sin que la ira nos domine. ¿Cuántas? ¿Cuántas mujeres fueron quemadas, torturadas? Difícil saberlo con precisión, pero los datos estimados de Anne L. Barstow: “– a partir de un trabajo meticuloso en los archivos –
señala que aproximadamente 200.000 mujeres fueron acusadas de brujería en un
lapso de tres siglos, de las que una cantidad menor fueron asesinadas. La autora
concluye que al menos 100.000 mujeres fueron asesinadas” (Federici, 2004, p.
222).
Silvia rescata del olvido datos muy importantes, por lo menos 100.000 mujeres
asesinadas, de las cuales, ¿quién pagaba el costo del juicio y la ejecución de su
condena, si debía ser quemada? En principio, tanto los insumos para la quema: carbón, brea, tela de cáñamo, como los gastos del viaje del juez, su estadía durante el
juicio, el esfuerzo del verdugo, corrían por cuenta de las víctimas y de sus familias, sólo en el caso en que fuera imposible que ellas pagaran, entonces, serían absorbidos por la comunidad o el terrateniente (Federici, 2004, p. 261, nota 10). Recordar los ultrajes terribles que pasaron no solo las mujeres juzgadas y asesinadas,
sino las familias y las comunidades, destruir las relaciones sociales solidarias, ¿a
quién benefició? Al sistema que iba creciendo a través de un camino sangriento: el
capitalismo.
Con la develación de esta mirada crítica del pasado, logra la autora el objetivo
planteado en el texto: una lucha contra el olvido, contra el olvido histórico impuesto por los vencedores. Silvia estuvo en contacto con jóvenes universitarios con
quienes identificó otro cercamiento, el cercamiento del saber, manifiesto en la pérdida del sentido histórico en las nuevas generaciones. De ahí que se propone: “revivir entre las generaciones jóvenes la memoria de una larga historia de resistencia
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en peligro de ser borrada”, de perderse en las sobreescrituras que diluyen tanto el
horror de la masacre de tantas mujeres, como su valor para enfrentar el feroz avance del sistema más depredatorio de la vida: el capitalismo; cuya esencia son las relaciones sociales de producción, basadas en la explotación; ante todo, relaciones
vaciadas, limitadas para vislumbrar las posibilidades de producción colectiva de lo
común. Incluso de la producción de una historia sobre un pasado común, y en particular, de la historia común entre las mujeres.
Construcción de la feminidad
La historia de las mujeres es una historia oculta; develada en Calibán y la bruja,
desde una perspectiva especial que reconsidera la historia. Ayuda a mirar la escondida y particular forma de explotación al redefinir las tareas productivas y reproductivas con extrema violencia, donde la feminidad pasa a ser una función de trabajo que encubre la reproducción de la mano de obra bajo un “destino natural.”
Desde cuándo las mujeres “se realizan” como tal siendo madres y esposas; desde cuándo son las responsables de la unidad familiar; desde cuándo para ser “buenas” mujeres, la discreción debe ser su principal cualidad; desde cuándo se discrimina a aquellas que rompen el vínculo central social del matrimonio y se atreven a
divorciarse; desde cuándo son inmorales aquellas que dan a luz a hijos sin casarse;
desde cuándo una mujer soltera, sola, es una “solterona”, sinónimo de fracasada
como mujer; desde cuándo se construyó y de qué forma el ser mujer. Silvia fractura
aquí otra capa muy gruesa de olvido impuesto sobre las mujeres al señalar que la
imagen de lo femenino fue constituida históricamente por el capitalismo en complicidad de la Iglesia católica y el estado para excluirla del trabajo asalariado y confinarla al trabajo doméstico, donde su hacer queda eliminado de la esfera de producción, donde la reproducción es separada e invisibilizada.
El disciplinamiento para la constitución de esta concepción de “ser mujer”, requirió de mucha violencia, tanto física como simbólica. La acusación, condena, tortura y muerte por bruja, entre otros fines, sirvió para ceder importantes espacios de
la participación social de las mujeres como la curación, la salud, que fue invadida
por hombres para construir la profesión de médico. También se requirió de una violencia simbólica para la sujeción de la mujeres, por ejemplo, en las imágenes que
Silvia encontró sobre las mujeres tachadas de ser “regañonas” o que tenían una
lengua afilada y eran exhibidas en la comunidad con una brida en la cabeza y con
un lazo al cuello (p. 177), para dar lección a otras mujeres de la condena de este tipo de comportamientos. Todo ello encaminado a cercar, minar y reducir el espacio
social, económico y político de la participación femenina, en otras palabras, a lograr su reclusión física doméstica y su confinamiento relacional.
Es fundamental hoy recordar que las formas colectivas del trabajo doméstico no
eran privativas de las mujeres, que en ellas participaban los hombres; recordar que
el trabajo en colectivo propiciaba la creación de lazos sociales de reciprocidad y
solidaridad entre mujeres de las aldeas feudales; recordar que la situación actual del
rol femenino no siempre ha sido así; recordar que hubo formas distintas y más libres en la organización social para las mujeres. Estos recuerdos del ámbito de la
reproducción como un lugar sin discriminación hoy son muy potentes para pensar
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lo femenino. La noción de lo femenino es una construcción histórica y, por ello,
está en nuestras manos empujar su dirección al reconocimiento cada vez mayor de
luchas y resistencias de mujeres que incluso han dejado su vida por rescatar del olvido estas actividades de un hacer vivo y necesario para la reproducción de la vida,
para la continuidad de la especie humana en el planeta.
Actualidad de la caza de brujas
Calibán y la bruja actualiza la historia, actualiza el sentido de la quema de brujas en estos años iniciales del siglo XXI. Recordar estos hechos del medioevo para
pensar en los cercamientos actuales del capitalismo en esta fase global, como una
fortísima agresión a la vida, a las mujeres, nos puede dar ahora, como el relámpago
de Benjamín9 el faro, la luz, que ilumine cómo entender el horror que vivimos. Recordar los propósitos de la quema de brujas en Europa para vincularlas con la quema de brujas en África y Asia en contextos actuales, donde una mujer casada puede
ser asesinada por su cónyuge porque esa muerte le abre la posibilidad de casarse
con otra por el único interés de la dote, que bien puede ser tan pequeña que sólo
sirva para comprar un electrodoméstico, tal vez ¡una televisión! ¿La vida de una
mujer a qué se reduce? Las ideas de Silvia son actuales y son luces que iluminan
los peligros del presente, por ello, Silvia señala: “El pasado no ha pasado”.
En Calibán y la bruja, no sólo hay una mirada crítica a la historia escindida y
oculta, hay también una clave de lectura del pasado como algo que sobrevive en el
presente y que nos fuerza a pensar el futuro que deseamos y por el que luchamos.
La perspectiva crítica de Silvia nos ilumina en muchos momentos para analizar la
actualidad de algunos procesos ocurridos en los siglos pasados, pero que hoy mismo tienen vigencia. Desde la propuesta de pensar la acumulación originaria como
un proceso actual y necesario para el capital hoy, a través de las reformas estructurales dictadas por el Banco Mundial y el Fondo Monetario Internacional, que siguen arrasando con muchos países, no sólo del tercer mundo. Eventos que Silvia
pudo sentir en Nigeria y es desde ahí dónde regresa a pensar la historia.
No obstante, no solamente encontramos las actualizaciones de los ataques de
quienes dominan el sistema capitalista, sino también hallamos las posibilidades
emancipatorias de la gente común, y las mujeres al frente; como aquellas que salieron a detener los barcos cargados con trigo que salían de la aldea, aun cuando les
costara la vida (Federici, 2004, p. 128). Los motines por la comida son una lucha
eminentemente femenina; la necesidad de alimentar a sus hijos, familias, era la
fuerza que las impulsaba a levantarse y arriesgarse ante el avance de los cercamientos. Son luchas que van más allá de la materialidad del alimento, son luchas por la
dignidad, por la vida y su reproducción, cuyas guardianas han sido las mujeres.
Siguiendo este recuerdo que nos ofrece Calibán y la bruja de este coraje y acción directa de las mujeres, resuenan recuerdos que estoy escuchando en la Sierra
9
“Articular históricamente el pasado no significa conocerlo 'tal como como fue en concreto': sino más
bien adueñarse de un recuerdo semejante al que brilla en un instante de peligro”, Löwy, Michael.
(2003) Walter Benjamin, Aviso de incendio. Una lectura de las tesis sobre el concepto de la historia.
Argentina: Fondo de Cultura Económica de Argentina, p. 75.
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Norte de Oaxaca, México, en un caso bastante conocido: la recuperación del manejo de los bosques por los Pueblos Mancomunados10. En esta lucha de los años 80
en Oaxaca, fueron las mujeres quienes con valentía pusieron tanques de gas en la
carretera para impedir que salieran los camiones troceros, de la empresa papelera
que sacaba los rollos de madera. Estas mujeres dijeron a los choferes que si intentaban pasar, prenderían fuego, aunque ellas murieran también. Rescatar del olvido
la fuerza y dignidad de la tradición de lucha de las mujeres nutre la esperanza, la
imaginación y el deseo de nuestras luchas presentes.
A manera conclusiva, uno de los ecos más sensibles y potentes que nos ofrece la
reflexión de Silvia Federici es la actualización del sentido histórico a través del recuerdo vivo de formas de lucha que iluminan y fortalecen las resistencias ante la
catástrofe que vivimos, además de abrir nuestra creatividad para forjar las posibilidades de construcciones fundamentalmente arraigadas en la reproducción de la vida, desde ahí con la inspiración de tantas mujeres que han luchado y siguen luchando estamos construyendo nuevas formas de relación mirando lo común que
podemos producir.
Bibliografía
10
Esta lucha fue realizada por los Pueblos Mancomunados: Yavesía, Guelatao, Lachatao, Ixtlán, Calpulalpam y la Nevería. Lograron el retiro de las concesiones a estas empresas y conformaron la Unidad de aprovechamiento forestal comunitario, la cual realiza el manejo integral de los bosques y recientemente incursiona en la producción de muebles. A partir de la recuperación del aprovechamiento
del bosque, también iniciaron una embotelladora de agua, que beneficia a muchas comunidades de la
Sierra.
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Bonefeld, Werner. (2001) “Clase y constitución”. Bajo el Volcán, 2, Puebla:
Revista del Posgrado en Sociología, ICSYH-BUAP.
Echeverría, Bolívar. (1994) “Modernidad y capitalismo (15 tesis)”, en
Echeverría B., Las ilusiones de la modernidad, México: UNAM/ El Equilibrista.
Federici, Silvia. (2004) Calibán y la bruja. Mujeres, cuerpo y acumulación primitiva. Madrid: Traficantes de sueños.
Federici, Silvia. (2010) Calibán y la Bruja: mujeres, cuerpo y acumulación originaria. Buenos Aires: Tinta Limón ediciones.
Federici, Silvia. (2013) La revolución feminista inacabada: mujeres,
reproducción social y luchas por lo común. México: Escuela Calpulli.
Fernández, María Ángeles. (2014) “Las mujeres sin tierra alimentan al mundo”.
Desinformémonos, 2 febrero 2014, http://desinformemonos.org/2014/02/lasmujeres-sin-tierra-alimentan-al-mundo-2/.
Gutierrez, Raquel y Fabiola Escárzaga (coord.). (2005) Movimiento indígena en
América Latina: resistencia y proyecto alternativ., Volumen I. Textos Rebeldes,
Centro de Estudios Andinos y Mesoamericanos, Gobierno del Distrito Federal –
Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana - Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de
Puebla – Diakonia – Centro de Investigación en Desarrollo – Universidad Mayor
de San Andrés – Universidad Pública del Alto – Universidad Autónoma de la Ciudad de México.
Gutierrez, Raquel y Fabiola, Escárzaga (coord.). (2006) Movimiento indígena
en América Latina: resistencia y proyecto alternativo. Volumen II. Textos Rebeldes, Centro de Estudios Andinos y Mesoamericanos - Gobierno del Distrito Federal
– Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana – Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de
Puebla – Diakonia – Centro de Investigación en Desarrollo – Universidad Mayor
de San Andrés – Universidad Pública del Alto – Universidad Autónoma de la Ciudad de México.
Gutiérrez, Raquel. (2009) Los ritmos del Pachakuti, México D.F: Sísifo ediciones - Bajo Tierra ediciones - Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades “Alfonso Vélez Pliego” de la BUAP.
Gutiérrez, Raquel. (2014) “Beyond the Capacity to Veto: Reflections from Latin America on the Production and Reproduction of the Common.” South Atlantic
Quarterly, 63 (2): 259-270.
Linsalata, Lucia. (2014) Cuando manda la asamblea. Lo comunitario-popular
en Bolivia: una aproximación desde los sistemas comunitarios de agua de
Cochabamba. Tesis doctoral, Posgrado en Estudios Latinoamericanos, UNAM,
México Febrero.
Linsalata, Lucía y Mina Lorena Navarro. (2014) “Crisis y reproducción social:
claves para repensar lo común. Entrevista a Silvia Federici”. Revista OSAL, 35,
Buenos Aires, CLACSO.
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Löwy, Michael. (2003) Walter Benjamin, Aviso de incendio. Una lectura de las
tesis sobre el concepto de la historia. Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica
de Argentina.
Madrilonia.org. (2011) La Carta de los Comunes: para el cuidado y disfrute de
lo que de todos es. Madrid: Traficantes de sueños.
Martínez, Alier Joan. (2006) El Ecologismo de los pobres. Barcelona: Icaria.
Navarro, Mina Lorena y Sergio Tischler. (2011) “Tiempo y memoria en las
socio-ambientales en México”. Revista Desacatos, 37, México D.F., CIESAS.
Navarro Trujillo, Mina Lorena. (2012) Luchas por lo común. Antagonismo social contra el despojo capitalista de los bienes naturales en México. Puebla: Tesis
doctoral en Sociología ICSYH, BUAP.
Negri, Antonio y Michael Hardt. (2011) Commonwealth. El Proyecto de una
Revolución del Común. Madrid: Akal.
Shiva, Vandana. (2006) Manifiesto para una democracia de la tierra.
Barcelona: Ediciones Paidós Ibérica.
Tischler, Sergio. (2005) Memoria, tiempo y sujeto. Guatemala: BUAP / F&G
Editores.
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11 luglio 2013 a Srebrenica. Resoconto di Maria Vittoria Adami
Toglie ogni parola quella spianata punteggiata da cippi bianchi, cullata nel verde paesaggio collinare della Bosnia. È il memorial center di Poto!ari, a pochi chilometri da Srebrenica, dove ogni 11 luglio arrivano, dai Balcani e dall’estero, migliaia e migliaia di persone. Sono i familiari degli 8372 bosniaci musulmani sterminati dalle truppe serbo-bosniache di Ratko Mladi"! tra il 9 e l’11 luglio del 1995.
A distanza di 18 anni da quel terribile episodio, incastonato tra i tanti delle guerre in Ex Jugoslavia", il ricordo non si è sbiadito, né si lenisce il dolore. Perché la
memoria qui si ravviva ogni 11 luglio, nell’accorato rito collettivo della sepoltura
dei corpi: i morti di quel genocidio, riesumati poco per volta dalle fosse comuni,
vengono sepolti al memoriale man mano che un’apposita commissione internazionale, a Tuzla, li identifica. È un processo che dura da anni. Le salme, quindi, tornano alla terra dopo un lungo funerale di massa, in un’atmosfera ovattata dal caldo e
dalla preghiera costante del muezzin, che risuona incessantemente dagli altoparlanti sulla spianata, in un brulicare di donne velate dai mille colori, di bambini che
pregano per adulti che non hanno conosciuto, di anziani che hanno sepolto i figli.
Nel 2013, sono state 409 le salme riconosciute a Tuzla, tramite i test sul Dna,
che hanno riconsegnato ad altrettanti morti un nome, una famiglia e una sepoltura.
Per loro, per quelle che ci sono da tempo e per quelle che verranno, in questo giorno di lutto, fiumane di vedove, anziani e giovanissimi arrivano alla spicciolata al
memoriale, già il giorno prima.
Quando il 10 luglio passo davanti alla spianata, a stento il pulmino riesce ad
aprirsi un varco tra la marea di gente che vuole già far visita alle bare e la lunga fila
di furgoncini delle tv, con le paraboliche spiegate, che trasmetteranno la diretta del
cerimoniale il giorno dopo. Tutto attorno, le persone si accampano. Con la canadese, nell’ampio prato davanti al memoriale; nei ruderi delle case distrutte 18 anni fa;
in macchina o in pullman. Mangiano sedute ai tavolini dei bar o sulle panche dei
baracchini dove lo spiedo gira e volteggiano caldi profumi di "evap!i"i.
Spiccano tra la folla soprattutto i volti giovani. Sono moltissimi. Erano bambini
18 anni fa quando i serbo-bosniaci rastrellarono le zone circostanti, radunando i
musulmani e selezionandoli in due file: a sinistra si viveva (era per donne e bimbi);
a destra si moriva (era per uomini e ragazzini). Oggi vengono da tutta la Bosnia,
!
Mladi" fu arrestato per i crimini commessi, tra genocidio e stupri etnici, soltanto nel 2011.
Le prime avvisaglie di una guerra in Bosnia Erzegovina si registrarono nel gennaio del 1992. Nel
dicembre precedente i serbi della Croazia avevano costituito la Repubblica serba della Kraijna nelle
zone a maggioranza serba, lungo il confine con la Bosnia Erzegovina. A gennaio, il presidente di turno della BiH, Alija Izetbegovi", musulmano, non passò le consegne al serbo Radovan Karadzi". Fu
un golpe bianco. Il primo marzo vinsero i favorevoli al referendum sull’indipendenza in Bosnia Erzegovina. Seguì a Lisbona la prima conferenza per la pace. Il 5 aprile iniziò l’assedio di Sarajevo, a opera delle truppe serbobosniache e di gruppi paramilitari, che durò fino al febbraio del 1996. In risposta,
Unione europea e Stati Uniti d’America riconobbero la Bosnia stato indipendente. I serbi proclamarono allora la Repubblica serba di Bosnia nei territori a maggioranza serba, iniziando poi il bombardamento di Sarajevo. Furono quattro anni di guerra tra musulmani bosniaci e serbo-bosniaci, che culminò in episodi come l’attentato di Markale a Sarajevo nella piazza del mercato, nel febbraio del 1994 o
il genocidio di Srebrenica nel luglio del 1995, a opera delle truppe serbo-bosniache.
"
© DEP
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Maria Vittoria Adami
DEP n. 25 / 2014
ma anche dal Canada e dall’America, con magliette dei colori della Bosnia Erzegovina e bandiere al collo. Da una panchina mi chiama un giovane. Mi chiede se
sono giornalista, indicando la macchina fotografica al collo, e mi dice che conosce
Giuliano Ferrara. “Durante la guerra – racconta – fui ricoverato in Italia. Una
scheggia mi colpì la schiena e mi operarono nel tuo paese. Lì ho imparato un po’ di
italiano e conobbi Ferrara. Mi intervistò”. Ha gli occhi celesti e cicatrici sul viso. E
si chiama Ibrahim. Lo saluto per proseguire verso il memoriale, dove le 409 bare
sono già sistemate in schiera, pronte per la sepoltura dell’indomani. Sono coperte
da un telo verde e su ciascuna c’è un numero, che corrisponde al nome su un elenco, esposto all’ingresso, e a una fossa, già scavata, identificata con un paletto di legno.
Alcuni parenti sono già arrivati. Donne chine sulle bare piangono. Uomini composti poggiano una mano sulla cassa del figlio o del padre e pregano. È un viavai
silenzioso, come silenzioso e rimbombante è il grande capannone di fronte al memoriale, che ospiterà le autorità domani. È la fabbrica di Poto!ari che 18 anni fa
faceva da base Onu a difesa della zona protetta di Srebrenica. Qui vi si rifugiarono
migliaia di civili che cercavano protezione dal pericolo serbo: le truppe di Mladi"
minacciavano di sfondare l’area. E quando lo fecero, i caschi blu olandesi, davanti
a quella schiera, acconsentirono a far uscire alla spicciolata i musulmani bosniaci
dalla fabbrica, consegnandoli di fatto ai serbi, che li ammazzarono.
Sul piazzale di questo enorme capannone mi imbatto in Cecile. Ha i capelli rossi sotto il foulard e la pelle bianca dell’Europa del nord. È olandese. Si avvicina
con timore, o forse pudore, “accompagno un gruppo di veterani olandesi” mi racconta. Nelle poche parole che ci scambiamo sento tutto il tormento di quelle persone. “Erano militari qui. Vengono tutti gli anni. Vogliono venire, è una cosa che si
sentono dentro”.
Non dev’essere facile per loro passeggiare tra quei lugubri spazi. Oggi, nella
parte centrale della fabbrica, una fila di teche contiene i ricordi di chi non c’è più:
orologi, quaderni, oggetti personali che hanno ridato volto e storia ai corpi dissotterrati dalle fosse comuni nei dintorni di Srebrenica. Ci sono anche le foto, come
quella di Rijad Fejzi" che aveva 18 anni. Ci sono i suoi quaderni di bambino. Da
grande avrebbe voluto fare il pilota, ma nel luglio del ‘95, mentre si dirigeva a piedi verso Tuzla, fu portato dai serbi a Poto!ari. Era con la madre, alla quale fu ordinato di andare a sinistra. Lui a destra: non tornò più. Ahmo Avdi" aveva 57 anni e
nella sua teca ci sono le sigarette che portava sempre con sé. Mentre caricava su un
furgone moglie e figlie, a Poto!ari, fu selezionato dai Serbi. E fu ucciso.
Sono 8372 le storie come queste, rivangate ogni anno l’11 luglio. “Domani sentirete un’atmosfera particolare” mi dice Lejla Mesi". Ha 24 anni e mi accompagna
in questi giorni. “Sentirete i morti e il dolore che si respira”. Lejla conosce
l’italiano perché da piccola, durante la guerra, fuggì con la madre e finì in Italia, in
un centro della Croce rossa a Jesolo. Era il 1992. La meta, in realtà, era la Slovenia:
“Là c’era una cugina che ci avrebbe ospitato”, mi spiega. Mentre chiacchieriamo
della sua esperienza mi stupiscono le sue parole: “Quando c’era la guerra...” comincia, raccontandomi che suo padre è sopravvissuto ed era soldato sui monti vicino a casa, negli anni Novanta. “Quando c’era la guerra” è una frase che suona co-
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me uno schiaffo uscita da quel volto senza rughe e la voce squillante. Dalle nostre
parti lo dicono solo i nonni che sono stati al fronte settant’anni fa.
“Salii sul treno con mia madre, una zia e i due cugini – prosegue – ma arrivati
in Slovenia non ci fecero scendere. Potevano farlo solo quelli che dimostravano di
avere parenti in grado di ospitarli. Ma quel giorno, la cugina di mia madre era in
un’altra città e non poté venire alla stazione. Il treno restò fermo un’ora. Lasciarono scendere chi poteva. Poi si ripartì verso l’Italia. Il centro di Jesolo era fatto come una scuola. Abbiamo vissuto tutti stretti in una stanza per un paio d’anni. Ma
sono stata bene”.
Nel 1995, il padre di Lejla chiese alla madre di tornare. “Sentiva la nostra mancanza e voleva vedermi. Ma quando arrivai, non avevo ricordi della Bosnia e non ci
volevo vivere. Ero abituata all’Italia. La mia casa era rimasta in piedi, ma mancava
tutto. Il bagno consisteva in un buco per terra. Non ne volevo sapere. Piangevo e
volevo tornare in Italia. Rifiutavo mio padre. Non sapevo chi fosse e non volevo si
avvicinasse a mia madre. Lo allontanavo. Non so spiegare perché reagivo così.
Non ero abituata a vederlo. Dicevo a mamma di preparargli la Pitta (una focaccia
farcita tipica della Bosnia, ndr), perché sapevo che quando la preparava era il momento per lui di tornare al fronte. Mi ci è voluto del tempo per abituarmi a quella
nuova situazione. Dopo qualche mese, la guerra finì. In seguito, con la parabolica
prendevo le reti italiane alla Tv. Ci passavo le mattinate davanti. Guardavo programmi, film e telenovele. E così ho imparato l’italiano”.
L’11 luglio è arrivato. Lejla mi assicura che l’unica strada che porta a Sarajevo
sarà bloccata oggi, perché la fiumana di gente non se ne andrà prima del tardo pomeriggio. E alle 8 del mattino, già ci si può fare un’idea di quello che accadrà in
poche ore al memoriale per quell’enorme e suggestivo funerale collettivo. I pullman arrivano all’alba, lasciando centinaia di persone nel grande prato antistante la
lugubre fabbrica di Poto!ari, che sa di ruggine e dolore.
La preghiera in lingua araba rimbomba sulla spianata costellata di cippi di
marmo cangianti, tra i quali sostano, piangono o si aggirano migliaia di donne.
Quella litania mi entra in testa, quasi ipnotizzandomi, mentre mi faccio largo tra le
persone davanti all’ingresso. Ai cancelli, tra la ressa, c’è un uomo con una giacca
grigia che guarda dei fogli appesi al muro. Vicino due donne li scorrono col dito.
Sono gli elenchi delle bare. A ogni numero corrisponde un nome e un corpo, che
finalmente ha una famiglia che può piangerlo su una tomba.
Tra i cippi in marmo, ci sono nuove fosse, con un pezzo di legno verde a indicare la posizione per ciascuna delle 409 salme. Passo di fianco a quelle casse verdi.
C’è una ragazzina che prega. Una mano regge un libro, l’altra accarezza la bara.
Poco più in là, le medesime scene: crocchi di madri sorrette dai mariti, vedove confortate da sorelle, con gigli e rose rosse in mano.
Dall’alto della collinetta, il memoriale sembra un formicaio, che pian piano si
riempie. La litania, che – complice il sole cocente – provoca uno stato di trance, si
spezza all’improvviso per le dolci note di “Srebrenica inferno”, cantata da un bimbo. È un canto di dolore che scende sulle persone ammassate tra le tombe, richiamando alla famiglia che non c’è più e alla Bosnia che ora è la madre di molti orfani.
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Scorgo fisionomie di ogni genere. Donne cerulee dagli occhi di vetro e capelli
d’oro. Anziane dalla pelle olivastra, ciocche ingrigite e profonde rughe scavate più
dalla vita che dalla vecchiaia. Ci sono uomini alti e magri che sembrano quelli visti
nei servizi dei telegiornali di vent’anni fa, nelle carrellate di prigionieri dei campi
di concentramento che negli anni Novanta non riuscivo a credere fossero sorti nei
Balcani, davanti alla porta di casa nostra.
Ci sono volti zigani, capelli scuri, baffi folti sotto coppole nere o riccioli mediterranei che spuntano dai copricapo. E veli. Una girandola di veli di tutte le fattezze
e colori, in un quadro di compostezza e femminilità al contempo. Le donne sfoggiano unghie che richiamano il colore del vestito. Gli occhiali da sole fermano il
foulard come un vezzoso accessorio. Perline e corallini costellano tessuti leggeri o
pregiati, sete o garze, variopinte o monocolore. Occhi truccati, sopraccigli arcuati,
sguardi profondi e volti tirati ma non meno aggraziati. Al memoriale, in
quell’apnea di preghiera e dolore, non si può non notare quel quadro femminile disegnato dal viavai di giovani donne che prosegue per tutta la mattinata.
Su un grande schermo sfilano le immagini all’interno della fabbrica, dove sono
arrivate le autorità, per la celebrazione civile. Manca, tra gli interventi istituzionali,
quello di parte serba, che non riconosce il genocidio. Dall’altro lato della strada, al
memoriale, continua il rito religioso accompagnato dalla preghiera in arabo che
non cesserà se non tra molte ore, scendendo sulla spianata come un lenzuolo.
Il sole batte, ma donne e uomini pregano e piangono ininterrottamente sui cippi.
Il crocchio di autorità attraversa la strada e depone corone di fiori all’ingresso; vicino, sotto la tettoia, si sono radunati gli imam. Nel frattempo, una lenta processione passa tra una bara e l’altra. In prima fila c’è una cassa più piccola. È di una bimba di tre giorni. A lei rendono omaggio centinaia di persone, attendendo in coda,
quasi fosse il simbolo di una barbarie che non ha fatto distinzioni d’età e di genere.
La processione non si ferma neppure per un improvviso scroscio di pioggia.
Solo al termine della preghiera, le casse verdi vengono alzate e passate di mano
in mano sopra le teste dei presenti. Ancora una preghiera. Poi man mano, il cimitero si sfolla. È ormai sera, quando Poto!ari si spegne.
Al memoriale ci sono alcune donne dell’associazione “Madri di Srebrenica”,
impegnate da anni a insegnare, soprattutto alle giovani generazioni, la necessità del
ricordo. “La nostra storia e ciò che vedrete qui”, dice una di loro a una platea di ragazzi di un campo estivo, “raccontatelo in Europa e al mondo, perché molti ignorano quanto è accaduto quando scoppiò la guerra e non sapevamo di avere il nemico
in casa”.
“Dicono che non fu genocidio, ma un numero di morti così non si fa in tre giorni. Non si improvvisa. I corpi furono smembrati e buttati in fosse diverse, per separane le parti”, racconta Emir Nurki" Ka"apor, del Forum internazionale della solidarietà (l’Emmaus bosniaco). “Per questo è importante ricordare a tutti le efferatezze di Srebrenica. I serbi non riconoscono il genocidio, perpetrato con violenze e
torture. Parlano di invenzione; insultano madri e mogli che ogni anno visitano fabbriche e scuole dove furono ammassati gli ottomila musulmani uccisi. A Srebrenica
si respira la divisione, pur vivendo fianco a fianco (Poto!ari è un puntino bosniaco
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nell’entità della Repubblica Srpska#, ndr). I giovani serbi e quelli bosniaci temono
le stesse cose, ma non si parlano. Durante il genocidio ci fu la collaborazione dei
locali che mettevano a disposizione terreni per seppellire i morti”.
Emir è nato a Mostar (Bosnia), 38 anni fa, da genitori croati e ha vissuto a Spalato (Croazia). Aveva un nonno bosniaco e in Bosnia ha sposato una serba, dalla
quale ha avuto due figli, coi quali vive in America. Quando gli dico che è un esempio di pacificazione tra popoli mi risponde serio: “Non è così semplice”. E difende
con trasporto la storia della Bosnia, senza mai dimenticare di apostrofare lo sterminio degli 8372 musulmani come “genocidio”.
“Srebrenica – dice – è una storia che si deve raccontare fuori di qui, in tutto il
mondo. L’Europa conosce il denaro, l’euro, l’oro, l’economia, la politica, ma non
conosce la disperazione di queste madri. Per questo è importante che i giovani ne
raccontino la storia. È una questione di verità e di giustizia. I serbi negano il genocidio sostenendo che morirono solo uomini e che i bambini sotto gli 11 anni furono
risparmiati e rimandati con le madri, ma sono stati trovati anche bimbi e donne nelle fosse comuni. Sono scomparse intere famiglie. A Srebrenica mancano alcune
generazioni e gli alunni, oggi, frequentano scuole nelle quali furono commessi delitti efferati”. Le truppe serbo-bosniache che rastrellarono le zone, infatti, radunarono i musulmani in istituti scolastici e fabbriche, dove li torturarono e li uccisero.
Sono oltre 7000 i nomi scolpiti sulle lastre di marmo del memoriale di Poto!ari.
Il tempo non scalfisce il tormento, né il desiderio di dare giustizia a quei morti e di
coltivare la verità su quanto è successo. “I corpi restanti – continua Emir – sono di
difficile identificazione ma le Madri di Srebrenica non demordono e non si piegano
all’idea di riunire le ossa in un’unica tomba, all’interno del sito. Vogliono tutti gli
8372 figli, mariti e familiari qui. Purtroppo, hanno trovato fosse comuni con le teste, altre con braccia o gambe e l’identificazione non è facile”. Oggi il Dna permette il riconoscimento delle salme, ma fino a un certo punto. “Basta il 67 per cento di
compatibilità per attribuire un nome a un corpo – mi spiega Emir –. Ma alcune famiglie sono scomparse completamente e non ci sono parenti per risalire al Dna. E
poi c’è la confusione: una donna racconta di aver perso due figli; il Dna li ha trovati, ma non sa con precisione se le teste corrispondano a un corpo o all’altro”.
Eppure, la lotta per il riconoscimento va avanti e restituisce ogni anno alcune
centinaia di nomi (ne mancano all’incirca mille), con lentezza e su una strada in salita ostacolata da chi ancora non riconosce questo sterminio. “I serbi non lo ammettono. Parlano di invenzione e la chiesa ortodossa l’11 luglio, in concomitanza con
la cerimonia musulmana, organizza il Festival della luce e commemora alcuni caduti serbi uccisi dai bosniaci nel ‘92, i cui corpi sono stati recuperati l’anno scorsocontinua Emir –. A Srebrenica si mette in dubbio tutto. Ci sono madri e mogli che
riconoscono per strada i poliziotti che portarono via i loro figli e mariti. Ogni anno
Gli accordi di Dayton del 1995 definirono la separazione della Bosnia in tre entità. La repubblica
Srpska, quella serba ortodossa, corre lungo tutto il confine con la Croazia e la Serbia; la Bosnia ed
Erzegovina, detta federazione, è la parte dei musulmani bosniaci e ingloba Sarajevo; poi c’è il distretto di Br!ko, un porto fluviale a popolazione mista, sul confine Nord-Est con la Croazia che si autogoverna dal 1999. Srpska e federazione hanno più o meno le stesse dimensioni, anche come numero di
abitanti, e sono dotate di autonomia, seppur limitata. Ogni parte ha un proprio rappresentante e c’è
una presidenza, per tutte e tre le realtà, che cambia a rotazione ogni tre mesi.
#
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compiono un giro dei luoghi di reclusione, ma vengono insultate. È una guerra che
combattono da sole”.
Racconto a Emir che nel pomeriggio ho incontrato alla fabbrica Cecile e che mi
ha colpito il groppo in gola che aveva nel parlarmi dei suoi veterani. È difficile capire perché dalla fabbrica, base Onu a difesa della zona protetta di Srebrenica, i caschi blu olandesi 18 anni fa acconsentirono a far uscire i musulmani bosniaci che lì
avevano cercato protezione. Forse ebbero timore dei numeri più alti delle truppe di
Mladi"; si parla anche di un disguido nell’avvicendarsi dei comandi o di
un’ingenuità. Così chiedo a Emir come andarono le cose e perché i caschi blu fecero uscire la popolazione civile, a gruppetti, quando aveva cercato protezione. Mi
spiega che le ipotesi sono diverse: “Forse Mladi" aveva dato loro garanzie politiche, assicurando che non avrebbe fatto nulla ai bosniaci; forse li minacciò e gli
olandesi, pochi e molto giovani, cedettero il passo; forse ci fu un disguido nella ricezione dei comandi. C’era molta confusione allora. L’armata serba aveva già fatto
breccia nella zona protetta. Srebrenica era caduta. Forse ci fu una disfunzione tra i
diversi anelli di chi impartiva gli ordini e poi fu troppo tardi: i soldati erano già entrati. In seguito, i bosniaci hanno chiesto che gli olandesi fossero processati, ma la
richiesta è stata respinta, con la motivazione che erano lì in vece dell’Onu e, pertanto, non possono essere sottoposti a processo”.
Un fatto avvertito come l’ennesima ingiustizia, dalle donne di Srebrenica, che
continuano comunque la loro battaglia per l’identificazione e per il ricordo, incessantemente, tra quei cippi candidi disposti in ordine, che aumentano di anno in anno.
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