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

["Yoshie Furuhashi" <critical.montages@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 9/25/07, Gopal Kappiarath <gopalkster@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On Sep 26, 2007, at 5:50 AM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> >
> > I have talked with a lot of Iranians, both in Iran and in the
> > diaspora, and what I stated, the idea of sexual orientations not being
> > a norm in Iran, is simply a fact, not a peculiar idea of Ahmadinejad.
> > Whether Iranians will create the kind of society sketched above by
> > moving from where they stand now into the direction I suggested,
> > rather than adopting the discourse of sexual orientations en masse and
> > developing identity politics based on it, remains to be seen, and it
> > is up to them, not to you or me.
> > --
> > Yoshie
>
>
> Sexual orientation as identity is not the norm in US as well.

Discourse of sexual orientations shapes the legal norm nationwide in
the USA, except that, among workers of lower strata, especially in
working-class communities of color, it appears to co-exist with older
customs.

> Identity politics
>   is problematic, not just because they rely on categorizations that
> are socially/culturally constructed ( and hence the definition
> remains open),
> but also because  they can aspire to a constant ( dehistoricized)
> 'victimhood' status based on identity.

Many years ago, I read a book by Wendy Brown that addresses the
problem of politics limited by "a constant (dehistoricized)
'victimhood' status based on identity" that you point out: States of
Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity,
<http://www.amazon.com/States-Injury-Wendy-Brown/dp/069102989X>.

> If identity is recognized as multiple and temporary, and as a
> construction that occurs in an encounter with
> the 'other',  then neither is victimhood permanent  nor is the need
> to  be defined by that identity all the time.
>
> (A slave is a slave in relation to his master, but can be the master
> in relation to his spouse)

We can look at history and see how identities have appeared and
disappeared, which I think will help.

> Maybe all Iranians are heterosexual and comfortable with their gender/
> sexual identities,

A majority of Iranians, from what I know, don't define themselves as
heterosexual as opposed to homosexual the way people do here.  It's
rather that they have not thought of themselves in these terms.

> but if there are
> people who would like to be otherwise, and if the culture makes this
> restrictive,  and the state
> refuses to acknowledge it, then those who would like to be different
> cannot be so, and will
> remain inhibited and  may be victimized as well.
<snip>
> The need to ban stuff ( books) because they might expose the people
> to different
> viewpoints is a sign of  intolerance.

I agree with you 100% on these points.  There are many cultural
problems in Iran, some of which the government invents and others of
which it very much aggravates through its censorship, policing, and so
on.  The question is how best to remedy them.
-- 
Yoshie