Last month, as I joined the London Pride March through London’s West End, I thought: ‘how fantastic – we’re turning the capitol gay for a day!’; and indeed we are at a very good place in 2010.
100,000 were estimated by police to have attended the different events – evidence of our growing social acceptance. We now also have legal protection against discrimination and binding civil partnerships.
Life is good. Well, certainly life is better, but at the Pride Rally that afternoon several of the speakers sobered up the revellers with reminders of the parts of the world where being gay can still be the death of a person.
It’s the story shown on the map above (click to enlarge) going as it does from a Wildean carnation green to a dark, bloody burgundy.
As you’ll see, it’s a gay friendliest world in California, Canada and parts of Northern Europe and getting friendlier all the time in neighbouring waters and in much of the Southern Hemisphere too, but across much of Africa, the Middle East and the sub Continent there is a very different reality.
Sierra Leone, Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Uganda and Pakistán, for example, are countries where homosexual offences may be punished by life imprisonment, while in Nigeria, Somalia and Afghanistan, in areas where Shari'a law has jurisdition, a death penalty may be imposed.
That's not necessarily some hypothetical 'may be', as just this week a Shari’a court in Northern Nigeria has passed a sentence of death by stoning on a 55 year old man "for committing sodomy".
Elsewhere in the world of Islam the screws are being turned ever more tightly on homosexuality as it becomes increasingly snarled in the rise of fundamentalism.
A recent BBC/Radio Netherlands documentary tells the story of Palestinians desperate to flee to Israel because they will fare better there with a possibility of asylum as against the treatment they may receive at the hands of their own community. The gamble they face is that they can apply for asylum only once, and if rejected, Israel may return them into the hands of their likely persecutors anyway. This is the fate of 25 year Rami who fled to Tel Aviv as a teenager.
"I am afraid, really afraid. One of the last times I was deported, the Israelis left me on a deserted road. I saw a lot of people from my village and they started asking me what I was doing there. I don't speak very good Arabic anymore, so they started saying that I was a collaborator. I was afraid they would kill me . I fear my brother and Hamas more than the Israeli police, because if the Israelis catch me, they won't kill me. They will just arrest me. But Hamas will surely kill me."
Depressingly, the documentary concludes that in a situation as complex as the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the fate of homosexuals and lesbians is an easily ignored detail on a much bigger canvas.
So, here am I now a lately gayer delighted to have finally made the party, but also reminded by this map that there are many for whom the party will never begin. SM/LG
The documentary quoted in this article, The Gay Divide: Islam and Homosexuality (BBC Radio4/Radio Netherlands), is available for online listening by clicking on the programme title.
100,000 were estimated by police to have attended the different events – evidence of our growing social acceptance. We now also have legal protection against discrimination and binding civil partnerships.
Life is good. Well, certainly life is better, but at the Pride Rally that afternoon several of the speakers sobered up the revellers with reminders of the parts of the world where being gay can still be the death of a person.
It’s the story shown on the map above (click to enlarge) going as it does from a Wildean carnation green to a dark, bloody burgundy.
As you’ll see, it’s a gay friendliest world in California, Canada and parts of Northern Europe and getting friendlier all the time in neighbouring waters and in much of the Southern Hemisphere too, but across much of Africa, the Middle East and the sub Continent there is a very different reality.
Sierra Leone, Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Uganda and Pakistán, for example, are countries where homosexual offences may be punished by life imprisonment, while in Nigeria, Somalia and Afghanistan, in areas where Shari'a law has jurisdition, a death penalty may be imposed.
That's not necessarily some hypothetical 'may be', as just this week a Shari’a court in Northern Nigeria has passed a sentence of death by stoning on a 55 year old man "for committing sodomy".
Elsewhere in the world of Islam the screws are being turned ever more tightly on homosexuality as it becomes increasingly snarled in the rise of fundamentalism.
A recent BBC/Radio Netherlands documentary tells the story of Palestinians desperate to flee to Israel because they will fare better there with a possibility of asylum as against the treatment they may receive at the hands of their own community. The gamble they face is that they can apply for asylum only once, and if rejected, Israel may return them into the hands of their likely persecutors anyway. This is the fate of 25 year Rami who fled to Tel Aviv as a teenager.
"I am afraid, really afraid. One of the last times I was deported, the Israelis left me on a deserted road. I saw a lot of people from my village and they started asking me what I was doing there. I don't speak very good Arabic anymore, so they started saying that I was a collaborator. I was afraid they would kill me . I fear my brother and Hamas more than the Israeli police, because if the Israelis catch me, they won't kill me. They will just arrest me. But Hamas will surely kill me."
Depressingly, the documentary concludes that in a situation as complex as the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the fate of homosexuals and lesbians is an easily ignored detail on a much bigger canvas.
So, here am I now a lately gayer delighted to have finally made the party, but also reminded by this map that there are many for whom the party will never begin. SM/LG
The documentary quoted in this article, The Gay Divide: Islam and Homosexuality (BBC Radio4/Radio Netherlands), is available for online listening by clicking on the programme title.
ADDITIONAL REPORTAGE: RECENT STORIES FROM THE GAY AND WORLD MEDIA RELATING TO THE OPPRESSIONS FACED BY GAYS IN VARIOUS PARTS OF THE WORLD APPEAR HERE:
Gay map has been adapted from a version published on Wikipedia (user: Silje/Murrayrbuckley) by 'Stevie Pics Photography' for 'LG' and is reproduced subject to the terms and conditions of GNU Free Documentation License
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