Responding to comments on ‘We need to return to our liberation roots’

Last week I had the article ‘We need to return to our liberation roots‘ published in the Sydney Star Observer (if you haven’t read it I would suggest you do so if you want to read this post). There’s been a number of comments on the piece and quite a few negative reactions to it. So, I thought I would take this opportunity to expand on my argument.

Firstly, I think it is interesting that a lot of the comments on this post framed my argument as one that is anti-marriage. This is despite the fact that overall, I didn’t see this as an anti-same sex marriage argument. Whilst I used some elements of the marriage equality campaign as examples, this definitely wasn’t designed as an attack on the idea of campaigning for same-sex marriage. To be clear, despite the fact that I have reservations about many parts of the same-sex marriage campaign, I am not opposed to it. I just think we need to use it as a step to a broader goal of sexual liberation, not the end in and of itself.

Moving beyond this however, I think there were two lines of attack on my argument.

First, was that I am not being ‘practical’. This article was definitely not an attack on the idea of campaigns and movements being practical in their approach. In fact I think it is essential. My approach to a lot of these things is that practicality (along with radicalness) is essential to winning campaigns.

What I was trying to say in this article however, was that practicality should never come at the expense of our core principles. For me, there is no point winning practical fights if in doing so we throw out everything we believe in. Unfortunately this is what I think is happening in parts of the queer movement. In particular, what I am seeing is an exclusionary approach being adopted by many, in which particular queer groups (i.e. poly people) are being actively excluded in order to achieve short term goals. For me, that is not an acceptable cost to achieve these goals.

The second criticism has been focused at my class analysis of why I think these exclusionary approaches have become to proliferate. Some have called me classist and others have said that my approach would be to ‘exclude the middle class’ from the queer movement. Let me say from the outset, that is absolutely not what I was aiming to do. I have no desire at all to exclude anyone from any level of the movement (if I were the advocate excluding middle class people from the queer movement, I would be excluding myself).

My argument is about privilege. Privilege is an important factor in our society. Some people have it and they benefit from it. And even though sometimes we can talk about privilege between different social classes and groups, we very rarely talk about it within social classes and groups. My argument is that the reality is that, even though we may not like to talk about it, there are privileged elements within the queer movement; the middle class white activists I spoke about*.

Moving beyond this, my argument is not that these people need to stop being active in the queer movement. It is simply that they need to check their privilege as participants within this movement. I think that I, as a middle-class white man, need to ensure that as someone who does have privilege within my community based solely on those traits, ensure that I work as hard as I can to be an inclusive as a member of the queer movement. It is not about excluding myself because I have privilege, but rather making sure I don’t let that privilege get my issues ahead of others.

And that is where this argument culminates in my discussion on liberation. If you take an analysis of our society that accepts the role of privilege, then I think liberation is the natural course that we need to take. The simple fact is that the heteropatriarchy is based on privilege and no matter how much we fight for entry into it, someone is always going to be excluded from it. That is the natural way it works and that is why, as movement that I think is based on inclusivity, that we need to return to our liberation roots.

Anyway, I hope that explains what I was thinking more. Definitely happy to discuss more. This definitely is an interesting topic.

*Note that this description is a generalisation, and actively describes a social class rather than aiming to pin-point individuals. For example, it is clear that there are some middle class white people, such as those in poly relationships, who may not be privileged within queer debates. On the other side, you don’t actually have to be white to fit within this group. It is a general term, in which people move in and out of.

Is Gillard actually more progressive than all of us on marriage?

Has Julia Gillard been fooling us all along? Is she not actually the conservative we thought she was when it comes to marriage equality but in fact a progressive leader?

The Gay Star News reported yesterday:

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has told gays that her own relationship proves you don’t have to marry.

Gillard, who opposes same-sex marriage equality, isn’t married to her long-term partner Tim Mathieson but says they are still committed to each other.

She told ABC TV: ‘I think you can have a loving relationship of love and commitment and trust and understanding that doesn’t need a marriage certificate. That’s my life experience – so I’m speaking from that life experience.’

Despite the clumsy way Gillard expresses this (given the context behind this statement) these words should give us a moment of thought. When looking at them it’s hard to disagree with what she says.

Of course, as marriage is enshrined within our legal system I think everyone should be able to have access to it. Equality under the law is a basic principle I think we must follow. However, what I read into Gillard’s statement was more of a questioning of the very nature of marriage in itself. For me, what she was saying was that we don’t need marriage to enshrine people’s love at all.

This argument of course isn’t new. Many people have argued that what we really need to do is completely redefine the idea of marriage or abolish it entirely. As an institution that defines how people should shape their relationships, marriage puts people into boxes that they often don’t fit into. The question has to arise, why is the state involved in such a process? As long as they are consenting adults, shouldn’t we let people make decisions about their relationships for themselves?

Where Gillard’s statement was telling for me though was that I also think it called out some of the conservative tendencies behind the same-sex marriage movement (again I think without her meaning to do so). This is something I bang on about a bit (this is my second post on the issue in the past couple of weeks), but it’s worth pointing out again.

A lot of the narrative around same-sex marriage has been focused on this idea of ‘equal love’. It’s the basic idea that gay and lesbian couples love each other just as equally as straight couples and therefore deserve the same marriage rights as straight couples. We deserve the right to publicly celebrate our love the same way straight couples do.

This narrative moves beyond both the ideas of equal rights under the law and the issue of the legal rights that marriage brings. It is about the idea of marriage as a cultural institution, and in particular one that allows couples of formalise their love publicly. As gay and lesbian couples can’t celebrate our love in this way, we are unequal couples within our society (note that I am only talking about couples not because I have a problem with poly relationships, but because this is the dominant agenda of the mainstream queer movement).

It’s the same kind of narrative that I hear a little bit in the discussion about the removal of legal ceremonies from the Queensland Civil Union Legislation. Again, I fundamentally disagree with this move by the LNP. If legal ceremonies exist, everyone should have access to them. For many however this hasn’t been framed as an equality under the law question, it has been about the idea that this will remove the ability for gay and lesbian couples to express their love publicly.

The problem is that within all of this, there is an implicit idea that marriage is the only way people can express their love equally.By making this debate about ‘equal love’ what we are saying is that without marriage we can’t love each other equally, or properly celebrate our love publicly. The flow on effects of this are obvious; even when equal marriage occurs we will still have an institution we have defined as the ‘epitome of love’ and people who don’t fit within it will be left out.

What I am getting at here is Julia Gillard is right. We don’t need marriage to be able to express our love. In fact, when we start going down that path what we are doing is falling into a conservative trap that locks people into relationships that may not work for them.

So, is Julia Gillard more progressive than most of us when it comes to marriage? Even though I think it wasn’t meant, I think Gillard’s statement was probably one of the most progressive I’ve heard around marriage equality in a little while. The answer is probably no though, as her statements would only have been actually progressive if she had backed it up with questions around the institution of marriage itself. It’s pretty clear that these words haven’t come from a view of wanting to redefine or abolish marriage to allow for a more open and progressive approach to defining relationships. It is about trying to find excuses for her position.

But, for once, her words should cause a moment of thought about how we are framing our push for same-sex marriage.

Maybe just don’t make them role models?

Kendrick Monk and Nick Darcy (from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-06-08/olympic-boss-wont-rule-out-axing-swimmers/4059432?section=olympics. Original source: AAP/Facebook)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For some reason, this image has caused a furore over the past few days. If you don’t know who they are, this is Olympic swimmers Nick Darcy (on the left) and Kenrick Monk (on the right).

I have to say I have been flummoxed (I love that word) by this. I am really not sure why two guys posting a stupid photo on Facebook is in any way controversial (even though I am for much stricter gun control). It seems to me like the kind of thing that lots of people would do on trips to the US.

However, it has given me the opportunity to reflect on the phenomenon in our society of automatically making sports people role models. No matter who they are, we seem obsessed with putting our sports people up on a pedestal and expecting them to play a serious leadership role in our society. We then get shocked when, as commonly happens, a sports person does something stupid.

Thinking about it logically, it is a kind of ridiculous expectation. What we are doing is choosing young people (sometimes at the age of 14 or 15) based on particular physical skills, putting them in groups with other young people and then giving them lots of money and opportunities to travel. Once we have done that, we then tell them that they have to behave, all the time. We expect them to be role models (often when that’s not necessarily what they want or are good at) and put immense pressure on them to meet those expectations. It’s the kind of pressure and leadership qualities that we often don’t expect from people in other professions until much later in their careers.

Some people do a really good job of this. For example, I think the rugby played David Pocock makes a great role model. Others may point to someone like Patrick Rafter as an exceptional sports role model. These are the kind of people who both have great sports skills and great leadership skills. But a lot of the others  are going to do what a lot of young (and old) people do; get drunk, act like idiots and post the photos of them doing so on Twitter and Facebook.

My point is that I don’t think the problem here is Darcy or Monk. They, just like everyone else in the world have or are doing stupid things. Most of it is harmless, yet because of their physical abilities we are placing unrealistic expectations on them to constantly behave.

Maybe instead of complaining about what bad role models they make we could change our ideas of who should be role models in our society. It would be nice to choose our role models based on broader characteristics than one’s sporting abilities. Maybe we could look up to people because of their leadership skills, or the positive things they are doing in society. Some of these people will be sports people, others will not. On top of all of this, I think it’s about time we realised that sometimes people (young or old) do stupid things. Just because they are a sports person that doesn’t mean that is going to stop and as long as it is harmless, really, who cares?

ps. this analysis does not apply for things like rape or physical assault. These issues are serious and should be treated as such. It is never acceptable.

Celebrating discrimination

I receive media releases from Australia Marriage Equality (AME) to see what they are up to and today they I received a release titled: ‘AUSTRALIAN PARLIAMENT CONFIRMS CHURCHES WILL NOT HAVE TO MARRY SAME-SEX COUPLES’.

The Australian Parliament today passed the following motion from Andrew Wilkie:

“Should the Marriage Act be amended to allow same-sex marriages the amendments should ensure the Marriage Act imposes no obligation on a minister of religion to solemnise such marriages.”

In other words the Parliament passed a motion saying that if marriage equality passes, religious organisations will not have to perform them. It’s still okay for them to discriminate.

Hearing that I thought I would get condemnation from AME. But, no, this is that they had to say:

“Today’s motion confirms that people of faith have nothing to fear from marriage equality.”

“Parliament has made it crystal clear that it will not force religious celebrants to act against their religious values and that churches will continue to be able to define marriage as they choose.”

Yep, AME are celebrating discrimination.

This is a clear tactical move from AME to help get religious organisations on side. Apparently, if we can do as much as we can to ameliorate the concerns of religious conservatives then it will be easier for us to get marriage equality passed through Parliament. On the face of it, it is a good tactic.

But, at some point we have to ask where is the line?

Whilst this motion may calm some religious organisations, in celebrating it what we are now saying is ‘it’s okay religious organisations, we don’t mind if you discriminate against us. You can continue to be bigots.’

Whilst doing this may swing a few votes in our direction, in the long run, well beyond the point where marriage equality is passed, what it does is promote the idea that homophobia in religious organiastions is still okay. In saying, ‘it’s okay, you can continue to discriminate against us when it comes to marriage’ what we are really saying is ‘you can continue to use religion to be homophobic.’ This will have impacts well beyond same-sex marriage, whether it is through religious queers having to continue to face homophobia in their churches and places of worship or through religious organisations being to able to feel comfortable in preaching homophobia.

Marriage equality is by no means the only goal of the queer movement. Yet, today what we saw was marriage equality advocates sacrifice other elements of the queer movement to get their goal. Whilst they’re doing a pretty good job of getting marriage on the agenda, I’m getting to the point now where I am really questioning whether the long-term impact is actually going to be more negative than positive.

What Rinehardt’s wealth says about us

In an article titled “It’s tough at the top” last week BRW announced the list of the 200 wealthiest Australians. Miles ahead of everyone else was mining magnate Gina Rinehardt, who has amassed an impressive wealth of $27.17 billion.

Following the announcement many have been quick to debate the continued role Rinehardt plays in Australian politics, particularly given her often well-financed opposition to policies such as the carbon and mining tax.

Despite this however, few have gotten up and asked the question that I think is much more important than this; why on Earth does someone need so much wealth and why does our economic system allow for it?

When you look at the numbers of Rinehardt’s wealth, you can’t help but think how ridiculous it is. To put them in perspective Rinehardt is now earning approximately $600 per second and $51.7 million a day. That means that she earns more than the Australian weekly minimum wage every second (the minimum wage is $589.30).

When faced with those numbers many are quick to say that she, just everyone else on that list, deserves the wealth she has gotten. She has simply just done a very good job within our competitive capitalist system. She has played the system well and based on the rules we set out has “fairly” earned the money she has amassed.

In an ideal world, where resources are completely abundant, the argument may hold up. Yet, that is not the world we live in. Rinehardt is now sitting on this extreme wealth at a time when many others continue to be unable to afford the basics to even survive. Whilst a very few number of people earn more in a day than most could spend in a lifetime, many others have nothing to spend at all.

For many what this says is that Rinehardt, like many others, is simply greedy. Common criticisms of her are that she should give more to charity. She should take a leaf out of Bill Gates’ book and share her wealth around. In reality however, the problem is not that Rinehardt is greedy; it is that our economic system rewards greed.

Capitalism is based on the individual pursuit of profit before everything else. A profit based system is explained as the only way to ensure the efficient production of goods, which is seen as the major goal of our system. At an individual level this has resulted in much of the focus of our society is now around how to ‘get rich’. We define our success by how wealthy we are. Good jobs are determined by how much they pay. Magazines, newspapers and television shows celebrate the wealth of others and promote ways that people can reach that success. This is why we celebrate, not question, Rinehardt’s growing wealth.

The problem with this is that whilst capitalism may be good at allowing some people to become very wealthy, and it may be even better at creating cheaper products every year, there are many other social values that it lets down.

When reflecting on the rich 200 list you can see that the first basic one is the idea of everyone being able to have what they need to survive. Living in a world of limited resources, we only have so much to share around to an ever growing population. The existence of such wealth for some therefore occurs whilst others are missing out on having even the most basic needs. Whilst we celebrate the ‘success’ of wealthy people, we quickly forget about the many others that can’t even afford what is required to live.

Beyond this, individual value systems are now becoming very focused around increasing personal wealth rather than those such as friendship, family or community. Jobs and careers are no all about becoming wealthy, with the idea of doing good for society falling by the wayside. The extreme desire for continued material progress is trashing many of the environmental and social foundations that hold up our community.

The continued growth of Gina Rinehardt’s wealth is the epitome of what is wrong with our obsession with getting rich. Whilst Rinehardt earns more than she could ever possibly spend, many others continue to not be able to afford the basics they need to live.

Yet, the way to solve these problems is not necessarily to criticise Rinehardt for the way she has accumulated her wealth, or even because she doesn’t share much of it around. She has simply done a good job of playing by the rules of our economic system.

Instead we really need to start questioning the values of our economic system. Seeing someone be able to amass such wealth whilst others suffer impinges directly on my sense of what our society should value. Why are we valuing individual economic advantage instead on ensuring everyone has the resources that they need to survive? Why are we pursuing the continued push for growth instead of an economic system that works for the environmental and social needs of our community?

Rinehardt’s massive growth should ring alarm bells for anyone who values our society. Instead of celebrating her massive wealth we should be questioning why we think anyone deserves that.

Paul Howes: You’re what’s wrong with the union movement

“The Greens aren’t part of our movement.”

You’re at it again Paul. I feel as though you can’t open your mouth these days without taking some sort of jab at the Greens. I’m getting used to it now and have learnt to live with it. But, what annoys me is you don’t seem to realise that these sorts of statements are  doing far more damage to the union movement than they ever will to the Greens.

Before I start though, let me set the record straight.

I am a Greens member. I have also been a union member for almost all of my working life. In fact, I was a union member and activist before I joined the Greens. I have been a delegate in every union I have been in and been extremely active in fighting for workplace rights, whether it was through involvement in the Your Rights at Work campaign or through local campaigns in my workplace.

And I’m not the only one. Do a quick survey of Greens membership and I’m pretty sure you would find an above average union density. In fact, some of the most committed unionists I know are members of the Greens and despite what you probably think we all do a pretty good job of aligning our Green and union values. In fact, if you look at the Greens policies you would probably find a party that has done a better job at aligning union values with our platform than any other party in the country, even the ALP.

But, I can deal with your attacks on the Greens. I know you see us a political opponent, even a threat. That’s not why you make me angry. I am secure enough in my commitment to green ideology and unionism for you not to bother me.

What really pisses me off though is that when you say things like this you’re doing damage to the union movement in this country.

As a lifelong unionist I (and I would hope you) understand that strong unions are built on a strong collective. Unionism is about using our collective resources to build power, so we can challenge the entrenched economic interests in our society. We need to work together as we cannot achieve what we want on our own. And yes, sometimes this collective can have different views, even different political alignments. What’s important though is that we work together in our workplaces when it matters.

Yet, when you says things like this it seems like you feel as though you are ‘above’ this collective. Apparently, you think you have the right to dictate who can be part of this collective and who can’t. Today, in one little sentence, you excluded over 10% of the population from this collective.

It’s this this same kind of thinking that obviously made you feel as though you  could go on live TV, and even worse do so as if you were speaking for the union movement, and dictate that Australia needed a new Prime Minister.

It seems like you think the union movement is not about the collective, but about you (and potentially a few of your mates). What you say goes and if people disagree with you, it is apparently your right to exclude them from the collective.

And do you know what Paul, this is why the union movement is struggling. Unions aren’t about you and your political influence. Unions are about workers. Unions are about the collective. My voice, along with the voice of every union member, is just as valuable and important as yours.

When you come along and say ‘sorry, you’re not part of my movement’ what you’re doing is creating a union elite that is actively destroying the collective foundation that unions should be built on.

And when you think about it that way, why on Earth would people want to be involved in unions? If you don’t feel like you’re going to have any say in a union or if you don’t feel you’re actually part of collective, then why would think being a member of the union would be effective? If it all about union leadership, then why would anyone want to join?

Paul, the Greens are not what is wrong with the union movement. You are what is wrong with the union movement.

The freedom of assembly?

Wednesday was a bad day for Indigenous rights in Queensland. In the early morning the Queensland police were sent in to evict the Aboriginal Tent Embassy that had set up in Musgrave Park. In doing so they arrested over 30 people.

Watching the news I really had to ask, since when was this the prerogative of our police? What happened to our freedom of assembly?

The freedom to protest, or freedom of assembly, has generally been considered one of the key tenets of modern democracy. Whilst there is not legislation enshrining freedom of assembly in Australian national law it is covered or assumed as parts of all state legislation. It is also part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, both of which Australia is a signatory.

More important than these legal frameworks however, freedom of assembly is enshrined in our ideas of what makes up a democracy. For example, the freedom of assembly is outlined as one of the five ‘fundamental freedoms’ provided to Australians from the Department of Immigration. As their site says:

We are free to meet with other people in public or private places. We can meet in small or large groups for legal social or political purposes. Being able to protest and to demonstrate is an accepted form of free expression. Protestors must not be violent or break laws such as assaulting others or trespassing on private or public property. People can change governments in a peaceful way by elections and not by violence.

Despite this however, it is very rare that this freedom can be exercised in any meaningful way.

In the first place, the freedom of assembly is heavily restricted. For example, in Queensland, where the protests were broken up yesterday, it is heavily regulated by the Peaceful Assembly Act 1992. Under this act protestors must set times and places where they will assemble and must have this approved by a Police Commissioner. Often these rules are confusing and can be misinterpreted and if they are broken the full force of the law comes down on a protest.

Politicians are often more than happy to use these sorts of legislation as way to question the right of groups to actively participate in ongoing peaceful protest. As Queensland Premier Campbell Newman said in regards to the tent embassy:

I believe that the individuals who are protesting have had their, if you like, their day in the sun. It’s now time for them to do the right thing by people who enjoy those parks as well and move on.

In other words, the embassy has had their go and it is time for them to go away. This was similar to the reaction of Melbourne mayor Robert Doyle in relation to the Occupy Movement. What both Campbell and Doyle were saying was ‘we will give these protestors their freedom for a short period and only as long as they don’t annoy us too much’.

This treatment in law has translated to the way we react to protests in our community. As someone who has been to a few protests in my life I have seen the negative reactions people have to those who decide to get on to the streets. Even though we may support protest movements around the world such as those in the Arab Spring or Occupy Movement, once they begin to challenge the privilege many of us hold in Australia, we are quick to condemn them and tell people that they need to ‘get a job’. In some cases we are quick to take scenes of protests and call them ‘riots’, even if there is very little evidence of such an event happening.

Most disturbing however, is the amount of  resources we put in to crush protest movements. During the break up of the tent embassy it was reported that there were at least 200 police stationed around Musgrave Park. A quick search of police data in Queensland found that the Brisbane Central district has approximately 400 hired police officers. If we assume that a proportion of these police were not at work on Wednesday, we can quickly see that this number made up a significant proportion of the police force available in Brisbane that day (noting of course that police may have easily been deployed from other areas).

This is a pretty common trend. For example, at a protest I attended earlier this week against the proposed cuts to the ANU School of Music, police were stationed throughout the march (as if ANU Music students were going to start a riot). In other experiences I’ve had, I’ve seen police make mass arrests at the COP 15 protests in Denmark 2009 where there was very little to no violence to report.  In 2007, police spent weeks predicting a riot at a planned protest during APEC in a clear tactic to discourage people from attending. And of course last year, the Melbourne Occupy movement was brutally broken up by police for their ‘crime’ of camping in a public place.

In each of these occasions it was clear where the police priorities lie. They weren’t there to protect the democratic right to peaceful assembly. In fact very few people with power have are there to do that. Instead their interests lied in either protecting the wealthy few and their property or the power of the political elite.

When we talk about the freedom of assembly, it should really read ‘a right to free assembly, as long as this assembly is undertaken under strict regulation and does not actually challenge the power and wealth of the upper classes or political elite in any meaningful way’.

We do not actually have a freedom of assembly. Instead we have the idea that we can assemble, with the reality being that this assembly is designed, regulated and enforced to ensure that there are not real challenges to our political or economic systems.