Translated material
Again about invisibles
In the fantastic story of Robert Silverberg, “see the invisibility” of the hero for the blossom and indecency, for a year, is excommunicated from society - in a glorious future, selfishness is considered a crime and anyone who is noted by the morals of the morals, put a stigma on the forehead. This stigma serves as a warning for others: do not get close, do not speak, turn away. A person who decided contrary to the prohibition to extend his hand to the criminal is waiting for a similar punishment: isolation from society. At first, loneliness does not burden the hero: he freely visits paid gardens and attractions, steals food, and no one dares to stop him. For the first time, he understands the hopelessness of his position, when he seriously gets sick, and the doctor, seeing the print on his forehead, drops the call. The punishment lasts, and the hero begins to notice on the streets the same as him - but also for him, supplanted from society, it is forbidden to communicate, because this threatens the extension of the term. But the laid year passes, the seal is removed. And once the hero collides on a busy street with a man whom he had already seen once, tried to speak with him, but he dedicatedly added a step, disappeared. Now, after a few months, he himself, Gray, with a taurus on his forehead, who does not put on his support, rushes to the hero, praying to him to be noticed, and the hero first retains, understanding what this threatens, but then, remembering what despair he experienced in the same position, enclosed the outcasts of the arms around us. He was dragged. They took me into custody and will be judged again: this time not for coldness - for responsiveness. Perhaps they will find softening circumstances and free me. Perhaps not. Doesn't matter. If they are sentenced to, I will proudly bear my invisibility. ”
On January 25, the State Duma adopted in the first reading a law prohibiting the promotion of homosexuality among minors. The terms have not yet been decided, so it is still unknown what actions will be regarded as “propaganda of homosexuality”. Deputies promise to eliminate all inaccuracies from the law and avoid ambiguities, but many are afraid of excesses and believe that any hint of same -sex relationships will be punished. The adoption of the law was accompanied by protests in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Samara, Arkhangelsk and other cities. On December 19, January 22 and 25, several dozen opponents of the law, who stood in single pickets or kissed, thus expressing their protest, pulled out to the State Duma building. Each time, the shares ended with provocations by nationalists and Orthodox fundamentalists who chanted "We are the majority here!" and throwing LGBT activists with eggs and green. Each time, the case ended with brawls, broken noses and auto -zats: they tried to hang the organization of an unauthorized event on opponents of the law (not on provocateurs). An attempt to hold in Voronezh, a rally agreed with the authorities against homophobia ended that six people came to the action, who met one and a half hundred aggressive young people in training and olympics. Some stood with posters: “The roosters are a place in the chicken coop”, “Do not beg to be sighed (sic!) Under a changeable world.” Opponents of homophobia were thrown with snowballs and beaten.
They promise to polish the law and adopt at the end of the spring session. If there are too many amendments, acceptance can be transferred to the fall. The LGBT community promises to meet the second reading with new protests. Which will probably end with new brawls.
To be honest, I am skeptical of attempts to give a flash mob for the struggle, because it violates elementary logic: homophobia requires condemnation, the rights of same -sex couples must be protected, but they are not defended by kisses of the State Duma. These shares produce the opposite effect - they extract from the caves of dense defenders of traditional values and irritate the layman: the layman does not tolerate minorities and supports prohibitions. Mass demonstrations, by and large, have two main goals: the cohesion of like -minded people and sounding their requirements outside the party. Obviously, LGBT action leads to rally only in ultra-right circles: chauvinists in each action prevail.
However, the rejection of the usual form of protest causes some shock: how, this is a retreat, voluntary subordination! No, we are not predicting, no, we will fight further. But the struggle in the minds of many young people is limited to carnival, richly decorated with platforms on which they go, smiling, and throw happy people in a tightly tight crust in the crowd. And alas, it does not occur to anyone that the success of mass shares is measured by consequences, and the consequences of gay grades and all kinds of processions are zero, if not at all negative: that which should soften customs and gradually become confused, causes fence of masses, deaf irritation with unusual behavior. The real struggle, unfortunately, does not look so spectacular and requires greater hardness and sequence.
I started with the story of Silverberg, because the modern gay community is in the position of invisible, his problems are silent, replaced by the periphery of consciousness, declared a disease and persecuted by law. Opening to society, you earn a Taurus that will not disappear until the others fit into your skin, they will not understand what prejudices they justify their contempt for a person. To get into the skin does not mean making heterosexuals to survive homosexual experience. This means to experience the simplest empathy, face the experiences of a lonely person, see him in domestic conditions: how the circle of his communication is limited, what pressure of society he experiences on himself, what lies he is forced to go to maintain work and relations with people. It generally seems to me that the best therapy against inertness and atrocities is unobtrusive enlightenment, and I believe that the spread of the texts of Evgeny Kharitonov, the popularization of the films of Derek Derek Jarmen and Richard Oswald, the conduct of broad discussions about the problems of sexuality and the debunking of the myth of pain and the contrast of the same -sex love - all this will rather reconcile the average homophobia With reality than demonstrative kisses and other tinsel.
Even in the case of the adoption of the law, there will be an opportunity to go around the prohibitions on “propaganda” and fight at the local, municipal, level, as was the case in the Castro quarter (San Francisco, California). Wind voices, write laws, work with the voter. Do not be afraid to fight for real: difficult, boring, long, but only so.