03/08/2011 | Writer: Kaos GL
As Kaos GL and Pembe Hayat, we welcome your recent letter on withdrawing the GA out of Israel with pleasure and joy. It is a pure satisfaction to see the outcomes of an international chain of advocacy --an advocacy to bring attention to moral and core values of what it means to do queer activism.
Dear IGLYO Board,
As Kaos GL and Pembe Hayat, we welcome your recent letter on withdrawing the GA out of Israel with pleasure and joy. It is a pure satisfaction to see the outcomes of an international chain of advocacy --an advocacy to bring attention to moral and core values of what it means to do queer activism.
In a world where it takes massive courage to stand up against racism which is one of the prime ingredients of oppression, we congratulate each and every organization and individual who took this chance to enhance discussions in regard to queer stand on the Palestinian reality. As we, the LGBTIQ community, have been the ones to challange the sexist and homophobic/transphobic policies of the whole universe, we once again used this moment of history to fire up discussions on Palestinian seige and to show that LGBTIQ community itself also has numerous tools to unite, as all oppressive states unfortunately do. We hope this historical moment will go beyond a specific time period and enlarge its richness to profit the very same community even more.
Apart from supporting your letter which does react to voices who pointed out the risks of holding the GA in Tel Aviv under the given circumstances, there are still a couple of issues waiting to be underlined and cleared out. We -and we are sure we are not alone here- ask the Board to give detailed and further explanation on what is being meant by “recent legal changes in Israel”. We would wish to know its technical explanation, as well as its relativitiy to the concerns we and many other organizations have expressed.
Additionally, the recent letter does not relieve our comments and great worries on the two Board members who expressed joy when the organization Helem from Lebanon asked for its resignation from IGLYO membership. It is surely still a shame and grave development and we would like to once more bring your and the international community’s attention to this inappropriate and unexpected behavior of Board members. We wish to continue our communication on what your next steps will be in regard to this issue. If a such soul remains in IGLYO and if there are still worries among us as member organizations on the creation of reactions upon each opposing voice, we believe there is no guarantee for healthy decision-making processes and dialogues.
Lastly, to use a common language and avoid any mis-reading, we wish to express that none of the communication that has been carried out so far aimed to jeopardize an organization in Israel --in this example, IGY. We believe “support IGY in this event” in regard to International LGBTQ Youth Leadership Summit to take place in December could be a mis-leading and a dangerous term, as we stand against the popular racist policies of Israel and not Israeli organizations. It should be our goal not to picture any organization or person as a victim, when the reality and the approach are truly so. To complete our argument, we would like to state it is very crucial that the same host country hosts the International LGBTQ Youth Leadership Summit to “complement” the GA.
To celebrate our words again, we know there are many inspiring and brave people inside and outside Israel when it comes to speaking out against the concrete example of state violence in our region. We know we have more and more to learn from activist from all over the world and we would only be honored if we managed to contribute to this very queer solidarity.
Best regards,
Kaos GL and Pembe Hayat
Tags: human rights
