Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Oh, the city of borders.

"Jerusalem is really a city of borders" is the first line in the City of Borders documentary. How true this is. In the preview for the documentary one of the interviewees says that before the Arab-Israeli taboo relationship was one of homosexuality. How powerful this divide must be in Jerusalem, a city of such extreme religious ideals. As Open House puts it, the struggle is "navigating the all too familiar divide between religion and LGBTQ acceptance." Seeing the Palestinian in the film illegally crossing the wall, not to endanger the lives of those on the other side, but to "have fun and live life," puts a huge grin on my face. How profound.

One thing I really like about alQaws is their langage/dialogue intiitative between LGBTQ Palestinians and other Palestinians. Fostering a dialogue like this is essential to understanding each other. And, as we all know, there is no hope for peace and acceptance and understanding of another group of people if you cannot connect with your own people. I hope this has been successful and I hope Open House has a similar intitative.

alQaws provides a great list of films and books on the subject. And a wonderful list of LGBTQ organizations throughout the Middle East and the Muslim world. Watch This.

I did not know, prior to reading Open House's annual report , that some therapists use "repairative technologies" to "fix" one's sexuality. How horrific. I think it's great that Open House has 3 therapists and 2 psychiatrists.

                                

Here is an Interesting Article on homosexuality within Israeli government. And this one.

Man stabs 3 people at gay pride parade.

Former PM Ehud Olmert's daughter speaks out about gay pride. And here's an impressive collection or articles on Jerusalem and LGBTQ. And another.  The Jerusalem Open House website probably has the best collection.

I'm really glad that this is one of our topics for the course. It's important, I think, to look at issues that transcend religious and nationalistic borders - issues that apply to all peoples. The LGBTQ fight for the right to live one's life does not discriminate between color, religion, or history. And as we know full well through our exposure to homophobia in the states, the fight against the community pays no mind to these distinctions either. In spite of the discriminatory acts revealed above (and beyond), it is groups of people like the LGBTQ community that we must turn to to find the answers to our questions of, and quest for, peace.

On a highly unrelated note, through my roaming around, I think I found my calling.

2 comments:

  1. I agree with you in that I'm really glad we are looking at this aspect of Jerusalem because it is such a significant part of many different issues, yet the LGBT community and the gender-related view on topics often goes unmentioned or is deemed unimportant. It's a new lens through which to look at the Jerusalem conflict, and I agree that it is through groups of people like the LGBT community to which we can turn to for examples of acceptance, regardless of sex, religion, nationality, etc.

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  2. What's you're calling? Anyways, yeah sometimes we can be most critical of are own in-group, and resultantly have difficulty connecting them. Some people say that it is a sin to be different around different people, that one ought to be the same around everyone, because only then, one is being authentic - honest. The only problem is that not everyone speaks the same language. Even the people that speak the same language speak different languages. So we need to be adaptable and flexible. For if we never change ourselves how will our society change?

    But then again, who needs change? Everything is fine now, right? We have a black president. We're past racism right? And we have had a few female Secretaries of State, so gender discrimination is clearly over. McDonald’s Dollar is still rockin, so food is still cheap. Gays can openly serve in the military. So what are we making a fuss about? Let us just be satisfied for once and recline on our leather couches, crack open some Bud Lights and a bag of Doritos, and watch the IU game on our big-screen TVs. Sorry for getting so irrelevantly sarcastic, I figured you'd understand.

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