Re: [A-List] (Fwd) Re: Clash of Sexual Civilizations (was Re: ahma

["NÃstor Gorojovsky" <nmgoro@xxxxxxxxx>]

While I usually tend to agree with Yoshie, I am afraid that this is
not the case. The struggle for "personal rights" is not just a
"cultural" issue.

Socialist revolutionaries of course have to FIRST AND FOREMOST support
the administrations or regimes in the Third World,that are under
imperialist harassment.But they must also pick up the "economic", so
to say, issues of personal rights, because if we don't then they will
become a weapon against those administrations or regimes, playing in
the hands of imperialists. In "What is to be done", Lenin did not
attack the right of workers to economic struggle, but their
confinement into such a struggle. Same runs for what could be termed
as "political unionism of discriminated sectors".

It is one of our duties to link the best, emancipatory, heir of the
European revolutionary cycle to the current turmoil of an embattled
Third World. No one said it was easy. But it has to be done. And the
reason is quite simple.

If this revolutionary Left, a Left that takes on these "personal
rights" issues from _within_ the national liberation movement in the
Third World even though the issue might be unpopular for the time
being, if this kind of Left does not exist, then imperialism as a
system will invent a "Left" that will further imperialist interests
based on the limits of the contesting regimes in the Third World  I am
not suggesting that struggle in Iran or around Iran must be centered
around the issue of homosexuality. I am suggesting that "unheard
clamors" must be broached by us, because if we don't then there will
appear some sepoy that broaches them. And that though not as the main
point of any programme, these issues must be included in any programme
against imperialism.

We can, of course, decide to evict homosexuals from the struggle. It
would be certainly a pity, because we might be evicting some hundreds
of Spartans...

And this, this will be a bad contribution to the general movement.

>
> Date sent:              Tue, 25 Sep 2007 08:29:09 -0400
> From:                   Yoshie Furuhashi <critical.montages@xxxxxxxxx>
> Subject:                [A-List] Clash of Sexual Civilizations (was Re:
> ahmadinejad) To:                A-List <a-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Send
> reply to:       The A-List <a-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> > FULL TEXT:
> > <http://montages.blogspot.com/2007/09/clash-of-sexual-civilizations.
> > ht ml> Clash of Sexual Civilizations
> >
> > Questioned about the state of homosexuals in the Islamic Republic of
> > Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said at Columbia University: "In Iran, we
> > don't have homosexuals, like in your country. We don't have that in
> > our country. In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know
> > who's told you that we have it" ("President Ahmadinejad Delivers
> > Remarks at Columbia University," CQ Transcripts Wire, 24 September
> > 2007). The audience, shocked, responded with boos and laughter.
> >
> > Now, that's a clash of sexual civilizations! In America, at least
> > the liberal part of America represented by its great universities
> > like Columbia, it is a norm that people define themselves by the
> > gender of their sexual partners -- homosexual, bisexual, or
> > heterosexual -- and that self definition, sexual identity, is a very
> > important part of themselves. In Iran, too, some people, especially
> > younger urbanites, have adopted the aforementioned sexual categories
> > whose origins Michel Foucault traces back to nineteenth-century
> > bourgeois culture of the West.1 But a majority of Iranians,
> > apparently including their President, have not adopted the idea of
> > sexual orientations, nor have much of the rest of the Third World.
> >
> > Western liberals and leftists know what to think of the North-South
> > economic gap, but they have yet to figure out a way to sensibly
> > handle this North-South sexual gap.
> >
> > . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
> >
> > 1 See, especially, The History of Sexuality: An Introduction (New
> > York: Vintage, 1990 [originally published in France in 1976 and
> > translated into English in 1977]). Other useful works on the origins
> > and development of modern discourse of sexuality include John
> > D'Emilio, "Capitalism and Gay Identity," Powers of Desire: The
> > Politics of Sexuality, eds. Ann Snitow, et al. (New York: Monthly
> > Review Press, 1983), pp. 100-113; and Jonathan Ned Katz, The
> > Invention of Heterosexuality, (New York: Dutton, 1995). -- Yoshie
>
>
> ------- End of forwarded message -------
>
> Este correo lo ha enviado
> NÃstor Miguel Gorojovsky
> nestorgoro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [No necesariamente es su autor]
> _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
> "La patria tiene que ser la dignidad arriba y el regocijo abajo".
> Aparicio Saravia
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>
>
>


-- 
NÃstor