LESBIAN AND GAY SOLIDARITY NEWSLETTER

Formerly Gay Solidarity Group
(Established in 1978)

1) GAY PRIDE IN AUSTRALIA:
It's interesting that with the emergence of the gay and lesbian NEW Mardi Gras in Sydney in time to celebrate 25 years of gay pride some people, like John Witte and Craig Johnston (SSO, 17.4.03), are pointing to the fact that out and public gay pride in Australia dates back at least 30 years to Saturday, 15 September 1973, when some 200 demonstrated on the streets of Sydney.

A Gay Pride Week of events nationally with street marches in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney where 18 were arrested certainly proved that lesbian and gay activism was alive and well in Australia long before the first gay mardi gras in 1978.

Here's portion of an account which appeared in the Melbourne Gay Liberation Newsletter No.6 (October 1973) of the Sydney Gay Pride march by one of the 18 arrested: "Anyway, we tried to set off (from the Town Hall) --the cops wouldn't let us get across George Street-- they pushed, bashed, threw people to the ground; nothing compared with what was to come later of course. A few people got through but most of us ran across George Street and up into Pitt Street, through the traffic, chanting and yelling emphatically, handing out leaflets to the rather stunned drivers. At the next intersection a cop car pulled across trying ineffectually to form a road block. We all ran and got around it except for Mary. She was just walking across the street and was pushed and grabbed and thrown into a cop car. She got out and before she could get to the kerb 8 cops grabbed her, threw her to the ground, kicked and punched her in a really vicious assault --she had grazes on her back, a sprained and lacerated ankle, a badly wrenched arm and, oh yes, concussion. A photographer from Tribune was arrested for taking a photograph of Mary's arrest. His camera was smashed and he was charged with unseemly words, resisting arrest and assault and had his shirt ripped off. He didn't even resist let alone assault."

So, anyone with recollections of the 1973 Gay Pride Week or other lesbian and gay activism prior to 1978 should contact John Witte at jwitte@chilli.net.au

For instance, there were three National Homosexual Conferences before 1978 and in November 1972 the Sydney Gay Liberation group staged a Sunday morning protest and picket outside St Clements Anglican Church, Mosman. The church had sacked its secretary, Peter Bonsall-Boone, for coming out with his lover, Peter deWaal, on the ABC's television programme, ChequerBoard, a few weeks earlier.

2) EASTER CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE AT BAXTER DETENTION CENTRE:-
Every Australian who watched local news on television over Easter or read newspaper reports would have seen pictures of the rows of mounted police and dozens of other unmounted police in full riot gear confronting protesters outside the Baxter Centre in South Australia. The protesters were demonstrating against the continued mandatory imprisonment of asylum seekers. There have been no refugee boats since the Tampa debacle in August last year, so why are so many in Baxter?

The chasing of protesters and the violence we saw at Baxter on TV was reminiscent of what was described in Item 1 above. When police raided the protesters' camp site outside Baxter, Jesse Whyte of the activist group, No One Is Illegal, told The Age newspaper: "They came in here without bothering to make any other checks and waved semi-automatic machine-guns at people's heads. When you start bringing machine-guns into an equation, the capacity for things to escalate and go very seriously wrong increases dramatically."

So what's changed since 1973? The police came in riot gear and with machine-guns but the tactics were the same!

3) WAR IN IRAQ and LESBIAN AND GAY INVOLVEMENT:
We have been told so many lies for so long by the "Coalition of the Willing" that it is a relief to find that they are being exposed daily as this war, an imperialist expansionist war for control of the Middle East and the conversion of its populations from Islam to Christianity, continues for longer than the protagonists anticipated.

At many of the anti-war rallies in Melbourne and Sydney there have been contingents of gays and lesbians as well as those who marched with their trade union groups and other affiliations against any war in Iraq. In Sydney our spy tells us that the Enola Gay banner was prominent. It was used by Gay Solidarity in Peace marches and anti-nuclear demonstrations as far back as the early 80s. In Melbourne a very large new banner, Minorities in Solidarity, was created by young lesbians and gays with dozens of separate triangles on short poles with such slogans as "I'm into gay guys not guns," "Angry Dykes not Missile Strikes," Pretty & Gay not bombing all day" lettered on the triangles. Not unexpectedly, none of the gay media in Melbourne turned up to cover the anti-war events.

It is great to see these lesbians and gays marching together to show solidarity against a war which so many of us find unacceptable and the reasons for which have never been satisfactorily explained. Nevertheless, it is indeed fortunate that there are journalists such as Robert Fisk and others, who have done their homework, doing on-site investigations, and exposing all the lies.

4) KEYSAR TRAD AND THE GAY AND LESBIAN COMMUNITIES:
Keysar Trad has, during the last 8 months, been used by the ABC on radio and tv, by SBS and by mainstream newspapers around Australia, as the spokesperson for the Lebanese Muslim community. Issues raised in interviews include racism in New South Wales, when a young man was sentenced to 55 years for gang rape, demonstrations by students against the war in Iraq, as translator for Sheikh Hilly of the Lakemba mosque over issues of human rights relating to Muslims in Australia, and other related issues. Keysar Trad stated at a forum on "Homosexuality and Islam" at the University of Western Sydney Bankstown campus in June 2002 that Muslims in Australia should ignore anti-discrimination and anti-vilification legislation and he supported the statements made by a sheikh at the forum that homosexuals should be stoned to death.

Yet the gay and lesbian media have been totally silent on the issue and, despite having the matter drawn to their attention on numerous occasions, have chosen not to publish anything about Keysar Trad.

This cowardly behaviour on the part of the gay and lesbian media is reprehensible, to say the least, and brings great discredit on their journalism. If they don't have the courage to do anything about issues such as this, then they should not rail about bashings and murders in the communities, because it is the Keysar Trads and other religious fundamentalists, like Rabbi Perez, Nile, Pell and Jensen in our communities, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, who create a climate in which it is seen as heroic to beat up gays and lesbians.

Our communities should hang their heads in shame that they do not speak up about Keysar Trad and his ilk. Religions seem to be the winners yet again and so the cycle continues!

5) SAS CREATING HAVOC AND UNCERTAINTY IN IRAQ:
Israel's ambassador to Australia, Gabi Levy, told The Sunday Age (13.4.03) that the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon rang Prime Minister Howard a week ago to convey his appreciation for the part Australia had played in western Iraq. Mr Levy said Australia's Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, had briefed his Israeli counterpart on the coalition forces' in western Iraq and said their aim was to prevent Scud missile attacks on Israel. It seems likely that Australia's SAS moved into Iraq at least two days before the "official" war started on March 20 with a cruise missile bombardment of Baghdad intended to kill the Iraqi leadership. On March 30, Australian army chief Peter Leahy said the SAS had been doing what was expected --"deep reconnaissance, creating havoc and uncertainty behind enemy lines."

6) GUANTANAMO BAY SUICIDE BIDS:
Washington has revealed that five of the 625 inmates held at the US military's prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had attempted suicide up to the first week in February (The Age, 8.2.03). The series of suicide attempts began when an inmate tried to hang himself on January 16, a Pentagon spokeswoman said. The US has held men it calls "unlawful combatants" at high-security prisons at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay since January 2002. There were 10 suicide attempts among inmates last year. It has been rumoured that some inmates are as young as fifteen. The inmates, suspected al-Qaeda members and others captured in the US "global war on terrorism" have been questioned without being charged or being allowed to contact lawyers. They include at least two Australians, David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib, who have literally had no help from the federal government and little concern from other Australians. Their fellow Australians generally seem to be quite happy to accept the kind of proposed anti-terror legislation which would enable our government to do much the same thing as the United States is doing in Guantanamo Bay.

7) AUSTRALIA'S UNCONSTITUTIONAL TERRORISM BILLS:
The Federal government's ASIO bill remains with the Senate awaiting further debate. The bill is an unnecessary attempt to provide unprecedented powers to Australia's security agency (ASIO). UNSW's Professor George Williams likens the bill to something out of Pinochet's Chile.

In Victoria, the Terrorism (Community Protection) Bill may be less draconian than the Federal ASIO bill and NSW anti-terror legislation but is that any reason to pass a repressive and undemocratic bill that plans additional powers to police to search your unattended home and workplace without your knowledge?

More public objections are necessary. We need protection from such bills!

8) THE USA MUST GET OUT OF IRAQ:
An editorial by Tariq Ali in the New Left Review 21, May June 2003, begins: "On 15 February 2003, over eight million people marched on the streets of five continents against a war that had not yet begun. This first truly global mobilisation --unprecedented in size, scope or scale-- sought to head off the occupation of Iraq being plotted in the Pentagon. The turnout in Western Europe broke all records: three million in Rome, two million in Spain, a million and a half in London, half a million in Berlin, over a hundred thousand in Paris, Brussels and Athens. In Istanbul, where the local authorities vetoed a protest march in the name of 'national security', the peace movement called a press conference to denounce the ban --to which ten thousand 'journalists' turned up."

Near the end of the editorial, Tariq Ali asks the question What is to be done? and follows with: "If it is futile to look to the United Nations or Euroland, let alone Russia or China, for any serious obstacle to American designs in the Middle East, where should resistance start? First of all, naturally, in the region itself. There, it is hoped that the invaders of Iraq will eventually be harried out of the country by a growing national reaction to the occupation regime they install, and that their collaborators may meet the fate of Nuri Said before them. Sooner or later, the ring of corrupt and brutal tyrannies around Iraq will be broken. If there is one area where the cliche that classical revolutions are a thing of the past is likely to be proved wrong, it is the Arab world."

And here's the final extract, Ali says: "The immediate tasks that face an anti-imperialist movement are support for Iraqi resistance to the Anglo-American occupation, and opposition to any and every scheme to get the UN into Iraq as retrospective cover for the invasion and after-sales service for Washington and London. Let the aggressors pay the costs of their own imperial ambitions. All attempts to dress up the re-colonisation of Iraq as a new League of Nations Mandate, in the style of the 1920s, should be stripped away. Blair will be the leading mover in these, but he will have no shortage of European extras behind him. Underlying this obscene campaign, the beginnings of which are already visible on Murdoch's TV channels, the BBC and CAN, is the urgent desire to reunite the West. The vast bulk of official opinion in Europe, and a substantial chunk in the US, is desperate to begin the post-war 'healing process'. The only possible reply to what lies ahead is the motto heard in the streets of San Francisco this spring: 'Neither their war nor their peace.'8 April 2003" --extracts only from Ali editorial.

9) AIDS IN SOUTH AFRICA:
A Guardian article in The Age newspaper (22 March 2003) reports on the latest form of activism by people living with HIV in South Africa. Their activism is in response to the ongoing criminal refusal by the South African president Thabo Mbeki and his government to react to the increasing crisis due to their refusal to provide adequate drugs and education to meet the growing demands of the epidemic. The report states that hundreds of AIDS activists gathered illegally and marched into South African police stations to begin a campaign of civil disobedience against the government for its refusal to provide life-extending drugs to those with HIV. Chanting and waving banners, they laid accusations of manslaughter against two cabinet ministers they say are letting 600 people die every day by denying the medicine to South Africa's 4.7 million infected people, more than any other country.

(Latest figures - April 2003 - indicate this number has now risen to about 6 million - and rising rapidly - Eds.)

"The activists vowed to revive the African National Congress's tactic against apartheid of committing peaceful but illegal acts that prompt mass arrests and result in police detention cells overflowing."

"At least 200,000 South Africans are expected to die from AIDS-related illnesses this year. An international outcry against the South African Government for doing less than poorer neighbours such as Botswana and Namibia prompted the cabinet to change direction last April (2002) and promise to provide the drugs, but its critics say it still drags its feet because President Thabo Mbeki remains in thrall to scientists who question the link between HIV and AIDS."

To add ongoing insult to ongoing injury, the South African government has confirmed that it is employing Dr Roberto Giraldo in a team of experts called in to advise the government on how to combat HIV. Reports say that Giraldo believes anti-retroviral drugs induce, rather than treat, AIDS, and that the disease is caused by nutritional deficiencies. His appointment has increased calls for the resignation of health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, a close ally of President Mbeki.

10) GAY COUPLE TAKE REFUGEE CLAIM TO HIGH COURT:
According to The Age (9.4.03), arguing that they could not live openly homosexual lifestyles in Bangladesh, the gay couple took their claim to the High Court of Australia. The seven judges of the High Court have reserved their decision.

The men, who have lived together since 1994, came to Australia in February 1999. They applied two weeks later for protection as refugees from persecution. After being exposed as a gay couple in their home town, they were ostracised by their families and community, stoned, whipped and risked police bashings. Their local Islamic council had issued a death sentence against them. Their barrister, Bruce Levet, told the court that the Refugee Review Tribunal agreed they could not live in an openly gay relationship in Bangladesh. However, it rejected their refugee application on the basis that they would face no further problems if they were discreet about their sexuality.

The Tribunal's decision is outrageous. It sounds like something Minister Philip Ruddock might say on a doorstop interview for television! The Bangladeshi criminal code carries a maximum life sentence for the crime of sodomy.

11) SPAIDS:
There will be three planting days in 2003 for SPAIDS in Sydney Park, St Peters, from 11am to 3pm. The dates are Sundays: 25 May, 27 July - National Tree Planting day - and 21 September. This is the tenth year of our plantings and Sydney Park AIDS Memorial Groves remain the only permanent AIDS memorial in Sydney. Hope you will be able to attend one or more of the plantings. In the meantime, thanks to two capable young women and one equally capable gay male nun, the SPAIDS planting on May 25th will go ahead as scheduled with young trees and a BBQ buffet supplied by Council.

12) GAY FOCUS AT HOLOCAUST MUSEUM:
Elizabeth Olson writes in the New York Times of 3 January 2003 that the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington has decided to focus exhibitions on other groups, beginning with homosexuals. For two years the museum's researchers combed records, mainly in Germany. "The somber (sic) result is 'Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals, 1933-1945,' an exhibition that is running through March 16 at the museum, at 100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, Washington, and will then travel to New York, San Francisco and other cities. (More information: ushmm.org)."

Olson states: "They were called the '175ers', homosexuals that the Nazis arrested, beat, used as prison labor and sometimes castrated. Charges were brought under Paragraph 175 of the German criminal code, which outlawed 'unnatural indecency' between men, starting in 1871. The Nazis broadened the statute to make 'simple looking' and 'simple touching' reasons for tracking and rounding up gay men."

Definitely an exhibition worth seeing, one that will hopefully travel the world!

13) CATHOLICS "COURAGE"(sic) NEW ATTACKS ON HOMOSEXUALS:-
Catholics and other christians are so sure that homosexuals can be "cured" that they keep on instituting organisations to remove this terrible threat to their religion. The latest attacks came via a visit to Australia from the USA when a controversial American "so-called" psychologist Peter Rudigeair and fellow speaker Father John Harvey, founder of "Courage" visited cities such as Sydney and Melbourne in January 2003. Our Sydney reporter told us that there was a very small demonstration outside St Mary's cathedral with about 30 people being present. Included in that number were representatives of the Order of Perpetual Indulgence who were in gay male nun's habits but weren't allowed on the premises because they didn't meet the dress code!

The Melbourne seminar, held a day later at the Catholic Theological College, was disrupted by about 70 protesters who sang, chanted and waved placards saying "I'm gay and happy, don't cure me." Inside the seminar the protesters heckled Dr Rudegeair and Father John Harvey, whose message was about how homosexuals can live a chaste life, and even be "cured" if helped early enough.

14) NSW ADB AND NEGLECTED COMMUNITIES FORUM:
On 25 February 2003 the New South Wales Anti-Discrimination Board (ADB) held a public forum to explore the outstanding areas of law and public policy reform relating to "the neglected communities" - bisexual, transsexual, transgender and intersex people.

The keynote speaker was the transgender New Zealand member of parliament Georgina Beyer, and other presentations were by Rachel Wallbank, Dr Jay Ramanathan, Elizabeth Riley, Glenn Vassallo and Tony Briffa.

The Board reported that the papers were "terrific" and would be put together in a publishable form. Some of the recommendations were not uniformly supported and the Board has more work to do on this. The Board expressed pleasure with the medico-community input to the forum from Dr Jay Ramanathan who reported recently of the first female to female HIV transmission from shared sex toys.

The next regular ADB Gay and Lesbian Consultation is in the Anti-Discrimination Board's offices, Level 17, 201 Elizabeth Street, Sydney, Wednesday June 11 at 5.50pm and all gay and lesbian groups are welcome to send representatives.

15) EGYPT AT IT AGAIN -OR STILL!:
Egypt's persecution of gay men continues unabated. Many involved in the first night club trial and released have been re-arrested and are facing further prosecution and persecution. The US organisation, Human Rights Watch, reported from New York on 21 February 2003 that a 17 February appeals court ruling in Egypt may signal an increasingly harsh campaign of entrapment, arrest and conviction of men solely on the basis of alleged consensual homosexual conduct. "For two years now, the Egyptian authorities have conducted an on-going campaign of harassment against suspected homosexuals," said Joe Stork, Washington director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch. "The police are raiding private homes and using the Internet to entrap men on trumped-up charges of 'debauchery.' People looking for support and community find a prison cell instead."

And in later news, PlanetOut reports from Gay.com.UK on 26 February 2003 that police in Cairo had arrested 13 men in an apartment the previous week for alleged homosexual activities. Further, the report states: "In the largest case, 52 suspected gay men were arrested from a floating nightclub on the Nile River in November 2001. The country's emergency court sentenced 23 of the defendants to two years in prison, and the two suspected leaders were sentenced to three and five years in prison. The other 29 were acquitted. Later, the government tossed out all of the verdicts, except for the two leaders, and the 50 men are currently on retrial, 21 of whom have been reconvicted and will now endure harsh jail terms. This has deeply outraged international human rights groups including Amnesty International and three Egyptian human rights groups (datalounge, 17.3.03).

Write to: Embassy of Egypt in Canberra, Australia, 1 Darwin Avenue, Yarralumla, Canberra ACT 2600

16) OLDEST GAY BOOKSHOP IN USA TO STAY OPEN:
The bad news was that the United States' oldest gay bookstore was to close. The good news came in a PlanetOut report from Gay.com on 3 February 2003 that the Oscar Wilde Bookshop defied its slated demise at end of January when the owner of the Lambda Rising chain purchased it from former owner Larry Lingle. The Lambda Rising Bookstores owner, Deacon Maccubbin, was quoted as saying that he couldn't allow the Greenwich Village landmark to go out of business. It had been his inspiration in 1974 to open his first store in Washington, D.C.

17) DONATIONS:
As ever, we are grateful to those who have contributed to costs of producing this newsletter. Many thanks to you all.

18) ACTION AGAINST U.S. TALK SHOW HOST:
The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and other gay groups objected to MSNBC cable television offering radio talk show host, Michael Savage, his own TV show. For years Savage has used his San Francisco-based radio programme as a platform to target hateful, defamatory rhetoric against people of colour, immigrants, women and in particular the lesbian, gay and transgender communities. When homophobic and sexist Savage learned of the objections, he used his radio show on Feb 27 for a venomous attack on GLAAD and the others calling them rats who hide in sewers and a bunch of beggars who live off grants. Has he got his TV cable TV show? For the answer, because the decision is pending, visit www.glaad.org/action/

19) YOUR LOVING SIMON --THE STAGE PLAY:
Taken from the prison correspondence of Simon Tseko Nkoli, a new play in South Africa reviews the notion that all political activists endured their sentences with high-minded celibacy. Your Loving Simon is a reminder of the remarkable character of the gay and AIDS activist who died in 1998 the day before World AIDS Day that year. The play's director, Robert Colman, was inspired to continue portraying gay life on stage after his success at the 2001 Sydney Mardi Gras with his historical look at gay Africans in the play After Nines. ( Mail & Guardian On Line, 11.4.03)

20) MIDSUMMA ALGA 2003 HISTORY WALK:
In Melbourne, two hundred or so people gathered in the Carlton Gardens in front of the Royal Exhibition Building around 7pm on a balmy evening, February 1st, for the first nighttime lesbian and gay history walk. They then followed Dr Gertrude Glossip, Adelaide's famous walkaholic, assisted by story-teller Wayne Murdoch, of the Australia Lesbian and Gay Archives (ALGA), through darkening streets of Fitzroy and Collingwood as the Dr and Wayne shed light on the area's very distinctive history. It was, to quote one of the followers, a classic two hours long experience!

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Mannie De Saxe also has a personal web site, which may be found by clicking on the link: RED JOS

Mannie's blogs may be accessed by clicking on to the following links:

MannieBlog (from 1 August 2003 to 31 December 2005)

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CURRENT NEWSLETTER AND ARCHIVE OF PREVIOUS NEWSLETTERS

Mannie has a personal web site: RED JOS: HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISM

Mannie's blogs may be accessed by clicking on to the following links:

MannieBlog (from 1 August 2003 to 31 December 2005)

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This page updated 18 SEPTEMBER 2014 and again on 23 APRIL 2017

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