By Aviva Stahl
Disclaimer:  I’m not a queer or LGBT Muslim, so I am certain there are lived complexities and ambiguities to this particular controversy that I cannot understand. If the folks who are most immediately affected by this issue object, critique or respond to what I’ve written here, I will do whatever I can to ensure that their voices gain exposure and are taken seriously.
On hate:Â A response to Peter Tatchell
On the 20th March, Peter Tatchell celebrated his most recent triumph: he successfully campaigned to block Khalid Yasin and Jalal Ibn Saeed from speaking at the University of East London (UEL). Tatchell’s blog post detailing his accomplishment, posted on the Huffington Post and elsewhere, unnerved me, but it didn’t surprise me.
What was it about this event at UEL, that led to his interventions “on behalf†of gay Muslims? Do Tatchell’s efforts (however well-meaning) actually corrode the ongoing struggles for queer liberation and racial justice?
The context: Tatchell’s history of Islamophobia
Tatchell has dedicated a lot of time to engaging with the issue of so-called “Islamic extremism”. Here he explains his anti-“Islamic right†interventions at an EDL demo.  in this article, describing his opposition to another cleric, Tatchell tells us, “wherever Islam has political power, democracy and human rights are crushed†– not to make a sweeping statement about Islam’s incompatibility with those institutions we hold dear, or anything.  It seems that Tatchell wants to have it both ways: he maintains that he’s anti-racist and anti-Islamophobic, but draws on one of the core ideologies of the War on Terror in crafting his rhetoric and selecting his targets – namely, that false distinction between “good” Muslims who should be embraced (e.g. secularists who embrace his vision of human rights, democracy, gender equality and sexual freedom) and “bad” Muslims (e.g. Islamists who don’t) who should be shunned from British society.
Also consider the vocal opposition many gay Muslims have expressed against Tatchell, most notably in a 2006 incident with remarkable parallels to what recently occurred at UEL.  Tatchell’s organization, Outrage!, issued a press release condemning a Manchester imam after he had discussed whether execution was a legitimate punishment for homosexuality in Islam. Here are some responses to Tatchell from the online discussion board of Imaan, an LGBT Muslim group:
“We feel that OutRage! doesn’t understand our cultural and religious sensitivities. Often, the way they word and phrase their press releases can and does antagonise Muslims. Much as we’ve invited them to meetings so we can talk about the best way to tackle Muslim LGBT issues, they insist on doing things their way.”
“Peter, you either don’t understand or don’t care that the methods/wording that Outrage employs offends Muslims. We are Muslims. You either don’t understand or again don’t care that the UK is experiencing a wave of Islamaphobia and that has huge implications and impacts ALL Muslims including us.”
“Just recently Outrage! seems to have jumped on Islam as the only current enemy to your cause and in the current atmosphere of Islamophobia … it’s really unhelpful. Whether you intend it or not you are helping stoke a very dangerous fire and it worries me that however many people (most of them the LGBT Muslims you claim to be concerned about) tell you this, you don’t seem able to accept it.”
To sum up: for many gay Muslims, Tatchell’s interventions in condemning “hate preachers†are most unwelcome, because they reinforce hateful stereotypes about Muslims (e.g. they are “barbaric”, “uncivilized”, “backward”, “woman and gay hating”, etc). Gay Muslims are affected by Islamophobia just like straight Muslims, and its them and their family members and friends who are watched by the cops, visited by the the security services, stopped and interrogated at airports, bad-mouthed on the evening news, and harassed on the street. By implying that gay rights can only be “won” at the expense of inflaming Islamophobic sentiments, Tatchell’s words function to align the interests of queer Muslims against the interest of their religious/ethnic communities, often against their explicitly expressed wishes.
UEL, Khalid Yasin and Tatchell’s article
In the second paragraph of Tatchell’s piece, he writes that the meeting was “advertised with ‘segregated seating’ where women would be forced to sit separate (sic) from men†(emphasis mine).  Forced to sit separately? It clearly hasn’t occurred to him that some Muslim women prefer segregated seated events and may have elected not to attend this (now-cancelled) meeting if the seating had been mixed. Tatchell’s choice of wording is telling, in that he seems to describe the “suffering†of others primarily through his lens as a white, non-Muslim male.
It’s also important to consider the message at the heart of Tatchell’s article, that certain individuals should be banned from speaking at universities for promoting discriminatory or violent ideas.  These certain individuals happen to be Muslims who Tatchell finds politically unacceptable. When justifying blocking the UEL event with Yasin, Tatchell linked a 22-second clip of him describing what according to his view, the punishment for homosexuality should be in Islam.  Sure, I personally find Yasin’s ideas offensive, but it doesn’t seem that Yasin is inciting the Muslim community towards vigilante violence against gays either, though it’s difficult to judge since the context for Yasin’s comments has been edited out.
If the idea is to ban all “hate preachers†from university campuses, exactly whom does that include? What about the Catholic speaker, Joanna Bogle, who spoke at UEL this past February?  If you’re going to equate religious objections to homosexuality with unacceptable homophobia, then why wasn’t there an attempt to ban her? After gay marriage legislation passed in February, Bogle lamented:
“And how sad it is to be in London witnessing this, living through this, knowing that this insanity is happening in the country which once contributed so much to the world and had a quality of real greatness about it.â€
Even Tatchell has come under fire for inciting hatred and violence against gay communities.  A few years ago, he was accused by African LGBT activists of putting their lives in danger through his work with Outrage! They told Tatchell to “stay out of African LGBTI issuesâ€, and cited a letter addressed from one Ugandan human rights activist to the man himself:
“You will sit safely in London while our activists in Uganda pay the price for your deeds . . .  We have many people in the West who support our struggle, but they would not do anything to jeopardize our safety. . . .  You have shown a blatant disregard for the reputations and safety of legitimate activists in Uganda . . . I know what effect your press releases have on my country. Please put a stop to all your press releases regarding my country. It must stop.”
So Tatchell has been individually called out by gay and lesbian Africans for putting their lives in danger. If Yasin is banned from speaking at UEL for saying things that have “endangered” LBGT people, then maybe Tatchell should be banned too.
What’s the cost of Tatchell’s tactics and rhetoric, and who’s pays the the price?
Like David Cameron and Theresa May, Peter Tatchell is not alone in his efforts to silence and criminalize Muslims that hold particularly “unsavoury” ideas. From Rizwan Sabir to Ahmed Faraz, many Muslims are facing prosecution and prison for reading or producing the “wrong†material. In many respects, “thought crime†is the state’s new front in the War on Terror, and Tatchell has happily carved out his own role – policing British Muslims and their scholars for their supposed predisposition to homophobia.
Perhaps most worryingly, Tatchell’s recent intervention coincides with the emerging, terrifying appropriation of the gay rights discourse by extreme right-wingers.  A case in point: the newest set of ads paid for by the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), including this one:
THE AFDI has been classified as a hate group (by the Southern Poverty Law Center and others) and is founded by none other than Pamela Geller.  For those who aren’t familiar with her, Geller rose to Fox News stardom when she led the campaign to oppose Park51 (the mosque and Muslim community originally planned for construction in lower Manhattan). Reportedly, she even invited the EDL to speak at a demonstration in New York against the mosque. Her most recent ads are soon to run on San Francisco’s public mini buses, and all feature Muslims expressing anti-gay sentiments. Geller’s been pretty blunt about why she’s chosen to run these particular ads in San Francisco: “The gay community should be standing with me, not against me.”
Tatchell doesn’t need to agree with everything Geller says to be complicit in the same message – they both believe that in the war against homophobia, certain Muslims are among our primary enemies. By positioning queers and Muslims against each other – rather than in alliance to confront the forces that oppress us all, Tatchell is enabling LGBT communities and Muslim communities to be divided and conquered.  For queers, section 28 was about more than just censorship.  We understood that this particular legislation did not just silence; it also “spoke”, it communicated who was in power (straight homophobes) and who was welcome inside school doors (straight or straight-acting students and teachers).  We may see the controversy over Yasin very differently than the battle over section 28, but we must recognize that both instances of silencing functioned to dictate whose lifestyles, bodies and ideas “belong” in school, and whose are utterly reprehensible.  And both instances tied into broader efforts by the state to produce desirable and undesirable citizens.
The symbolic violence of banning speakers is ultimately linked to other more tangible forms of violence perpetrated by the state. I know Tatchell hasn’t forgotten the brutality queers have faced and still face from the cops, border controls, prison guards, the criminal justice system, etc.  But he seems wilfully unwilling to recognize that his current modes of activism appear to collude with and justify the state violence that Muslims face everyday.
I am aghast that Tatchell can sign statement in support for Talha Ahsan, as if he plays no role in the very thing that allowed Talha and others to be whisked away to solitary confinement, while Gary McKinnon and others were spared: that new plague of hatred we call Islamophobia.  How frustrating it is that Tatchell continues to select his “targets†and tactics with such arrogance and employ inflammatory rhetoric, as if no other options are available to him. No one is asking Tatchell to sacrifice his commitment to gay rights, merely to recognize that gay rights shouldn’t be won at the expense, exclusion and marginalization of any Muslim, gay or straight.
10 Comments
1. Tatchell’s words “wherever Islam has political power, democracy and human rights are crushed†worry me. The statement is quite Islamophobic, and completely erases the other factors that often influence the situation in the countries he’s talking about – i.e. stalled development due to colonialism. His way of working with communities outside his experience smacks of ignorance and Imperialism.
2. While I don’t know his entire body of work I’m sure he protests against bigotry and hate from all religions – didn’t he try and arrest the pope? And his call to ban hate preachers isn’t unjustified. Frankly as a queer Muslim, I don’t think speakers who say I should be put death for my sexuality should be allowed any platform. If any of the things Tatchell alleges about Yasin are true, yes he should be banned from speaking, no matter how many other Muslims bristle. How exactly can an endorsement for executing homosexuals be taken out of context? Or, to draw on the contemporary analogy, can we contemplate executing black people in any way because of our religion?
3. Final point – the link you’re trying to make between him and Geller, who is a much nastier piece of work, is tenuous at best.
Dear Aviva Stahl,
My Masters thesis looked at any possible links between Islamophobia, government policy and media coverage pre and post 9/11. My findings painted a very depressing picture. Islamophobia was widespread pre 9/11 but post 9/11 it gained respectability amongst the chattering classes. My research looked at a number of variables including, gender, race, religion and education. The only significant variable was education. Degree holders recognised Islamophobia as a social problem and felt that government policy and media coverage were part of the problem. Non degree holders were of the opposing view.
As a gay Muslim the lack of education amongst my fellow Muslims about their own faith is of grave concern. The Quran is not homophobic and there is no punishment for homosexuality in the Quran. The Hadith unfortunately is but Muslims are only suppose to follow Quranic guidance and instruction. The Hadith is the good, bad and the damn right ugly. During the time of the Prophet (PBUH) he forbid the creation of the Hadith (sayings of the prophet) for two reasons
1. Prophet Muhammad believed that the revelations he was receiving were directly from God and therefore did not want a competing text.
2. Human interpretation of events by their very nature cannot be objective.
The Hadith was written decades if not hundreds of years after the death of the prophet. The oral tradition was widespread and the manipulation of the so called saying of the Prophet were manipulated if not deliberately distorted and fabricated. The Quran contradicted and forbid many social practices that where culturally embedded amongst the new followers. The religious elite to the great detriment of Islam, interwove their cultural backwardness and bigotry via the Hadith. Tragically, the various competing versions of the Hadith condemn and stipulate punishment for homosexuality. Disregarding the teachings of the Quran for one of the many competing versions of the Hadith I believe to be heresy. On my blog braki.co.uk I write about the various issues that concern me as a British Pakistani Muslim who is Gay. My forthcoming article will be ‘Is Islam is in Crisis: The Word of God V The Word of Man’
How can the Muslim community accuse non muslims of Islamophobia when we inflict the greatest damage on our faith through our blatant misinterpretation and sheer ignorance of Islam. The Islamic world has turned the compassionate, secular loving heart of Islam into something very dark. Why are there 50 million Muslims living in Europe? We are here because in our countries of origin, basic human rights and dignity are absent, which are enshrined in the Quran.
In the Islamic Republic of Iran over 4000 gay men have been executed because of the their sexual orientation. The persecution of minorities in Pakistan by the majority Sunni population is justified in the name of Islam. The Islamic world possess the world’s most precious resource but there is widespread poverty, violence and ignorance. I’m ashamed of this depressing legacy and urge British Muslims to be a catalyst for change in the Islam world. This can only be achieved by us familiarising ourselves with the true nature of our faith
Mr Aviva Stahl I would very much appreciate it if you would use the word gay or homosexual instead of queer, as it is playground slang, thank you.
Naseer Muhammad
braki.co.uk
Dear Aviva Stahl,
My Masters thesis looked at any possible links between Islamophobia, government policy and media coverage pre and post 9/11. My findings painted a very depressing picture. Islamophobia was widespread pre 9/11 but post 9/11 it gained respectability amongst the chattering classes. My research looked at a number of variables including, gender, race, religion and education. The only significant variable was education. Degree holders recognised Islamophobia as a social problem and felt that government policy and media coverage were part of the problem. Non degree holders were of the opposing view.
As a gay Muslim the lack of education amongst my fellow Muslims about their own faith is of grave concern. The Quran is not homophobic and there is no punishment for homosexuality in the Quran. The Hadith unfortunately is but Muslims are only suppose to follow Quranic guidance and instruction. The Hadith is the good, bad and the damn right ugly. During the time of the Prophet (PBUH) he forbid the creation of the Hadith (sayings of the prophet) for two reasons
1. Prophet Muhammad believed that the revelations he was receiving were directly from God and therefore did not want a competing text.
2. Human interpretation of events by their very nature cannot be objective.
The Hadith was written decades if not hundreds of years after the death of the prophet. The oral tradition was widespread and the manipulation of the so called saying of the Prophet were manipulated if not deliberately distorted and fabricated. The Quran contradicted and forbid many social practices that where culturally embedded amongst the new followers. The religious elite to the great detriment of Islam, interwove their cultural backwardness and bigotry via the Hadith. Tragically, the various competing versions of the Hadith condemn and stipulate punishment for homosexuality. Disregarding the teachings of the Quran for one of the many competing versions of the Hadith I believe to be heresy. On my blog braki.co.uk I write about the various issues that concern me as a British Pakistani Muslim who is Gay. My forthcoming article will be ‘Is Islam in Crisis? The Word of God V The Word of Man?’
How can the Muslim community accuse non muslims of Islamophobia when we inflict the greatest damage on our faith through our blatant misinterpretation and sheer ignorance of Islam. The Islamic world has turned the compassionate, secular loving heart of Islam into something very dark. Why are there 50 million Muslims living in Europe? We are here because in our countries of origin, basic human rights and dignity are absent, which are enshrined in the Quran.
In the Islamic Republic of Iran over 4000 gay men have been executed because of the their sexual orientation. The persecution of minorities in Pakistan by the majority Sunni population is justified in the name of Islam. The Islamic world possess the world’s most precious resource but there is widespread poverty, violence and ignorance. I’m ashamed of this depressing legacy and urge British Muslims to be a catalyst for change in the Islam world. This can only be achieved by us familiarising ourselves with the true nature of our faith
Mr Aviva Stahl I would very much appreciate if you would use the word gay or homosexual instead of queer, as it is playground slang, thank you.
Naseer Muhammad
braki.co.uk
“I’m not a queer or LGBT Muslim, so I am certain there are lived complexities and ambiguities to this particular controversy that I cannot understand”
Actually, there aren’t. It’s a postmodern myth that you have to have experienced oppression to understand it. A white person who’s read a book about racism can understand it just as well as a black person who’s lived through it.
Non Muslims opposing hate preachers should not be labeled as Islamophobic. Any religion, ideology, culture or school of thought that condemns, victimises or persecutes any group for being different must be challenged. Bigotry has no friends but sadly many followers. I contacted East London University to make the them aware of the forthcoming lecture. The university had already cancelled the event but were grateful as they totally agreed that such individuals regardless of political or religious ideology should not be accommodated by an institute of higher education. It is depressing and worrying that Aviva Stahl misinterpreted events and felt that she could attack Peter Tatchell for being Islamophobic.
Naseer Muhammad
braki.co.uk
Dear Traveller_23,
Yes, Tatchell does protest against hate and bigotry from all religions, but I contest the idea that the same tactics work across all contexts. We can’t pretend that we live in a power vacuum, where challenging the homophobic policies of the Catholic Church can be done in the same way as challenging the homophobia in Ugandan evangelical circles, or various mosques across the UK. Since we’re living in a contemporary political landscape of intense and virulent Islamophobia, we have to ask ourselves how to stand in solidarity with those marginalized in Muslim communities (whether queers or whoever) without condoning or inadvertently supporting the notion that Muslims are violent, backward, fail to conform to British values, etc.
I’m not saying that there are overt links between Geller and Tatchell – I’m claiming that he’s complicit in her messaging. And he is. Like Geller, Tatchell wants us to believe that fighting (certain) Muslims is high on our list of fighting homophobia. Are people like Yasin the source of the violence that most queer youth face in their everyday lives? There are so many ways that we can work on building bridges between queer communities, Muslim communities, and Muslim queer communities…. by looking at the ways that austerity measures affect marginalized peoples, or how the state ignores or condones street violence, police brutality, homelessness, etc…
The choice isn’t between condoning Yasin’s comments, and embracing Tatchell’s tactics. There are other ways for us to move forward, as queers who reject homophobia, but also refuse to allow gay rights to be co-opted towards Islamophobic aims.
Dear Dan,
Well, I just disagree with you there. Reading a book about [x, y, z] is totally different than experiencing it. That’s certainly true of race. I can get a better understanding of what is might mean to be embodied in particular types of ways through texts or conversations, but I’ll never grasp the full complexities or the daily, lived, tangible realities.
That doesn’t mean we don’t have an obligation to try to read and talk to others as much as we can, to try to understand oppression better. It’s my lifelong responsibility as a white person to constantly ‘see’ what is made invisible to me — what it means to be a person of colour in a world defined by white supremacy. But there will always be things I fail to see, and there will always be other elements I won’t (and shouldn’t) have access to – like what it means to belong and feel safe in communities of colour.
Dear Naseer Mohammad,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts about Islam and the Hadith – obviously you know a great deal more than me, and I think your knowledge is important and valuable.
At the same time, I don’t think your particular critiques of contemporary Islamic practice would mean much to Islamophobes — nuance is hardly their forte (even Tatchell has said that “wherever Islam has political power, democracy and human rights are crushed”). Of course there is a time and place to talk about how to interpret texts, re-interpret texts, challenge Hadith, challenge Islamic law etc.
But I don’t believe Tatchell’s tactics create the space for those really important and critical conversations — rather, they foreclose the space for that, by seeming to position the interests of (some) queer Muslims against the broader Muslim community. I believe that Tatchell’s tactics encourage Islamophobia. And Islamophobes don’t care whether a Muslim is gay or straight, or what branch of Islam s/he adheres to, or which scholar s/he follows, etc. It’s all the same to them.
Finally, re: queer. I use queer like many others do – to encompass the broad range of sexual practices that lie outside of the heterosexual norm,and the broad range of gender identity expressions that lay outside of or refute/reject the gender binary. I (often) call myself a queer woman, and I’m very proud to belong to queer cultures.
Aviva
Dear Aviva Stahl
Thank you for your reply. I agree that presenting a more secular interpretation of the Quran would not mean much to such bigoted individuals. It is the vast majority in the middle that really concern me. Islamophobia I feel can most effectively be tackled my Muslims first rediscovering the true essence of their faith. Political Islam has been radicalised partly due to the tyranny of pro western regimes and the rise of Wahhabism throughout the Islamic world. Islam needs a reformation that provides clarity and consistency about the essence of this great faith. I believe the various competing, contradictory and confusing versions of the Hadith have done far more harm than good. They also directly undermine the Quran. The Hadith has no place in Islam. If a reformation does not happen the fascist minority will get stronger. Islam – like Christianity – will start to become increasingly irrelevant amongst the growing number of secular Muslims. Defending Islam’s good name is futile, if what her followers say and do is far removed from the true essence of the faith. Please take a look at my latest post ‘The Quran is Not Homophobic! Are You? and ‘Islam in Crisis: Word of God V Word of Man’ braki.co.uk
I intend on working with Peter Tatchell in starting a dialogue with British Muslims regarding homosexuality and Islam. I would be thrilled if you would be willing to work with us? Please feel free to contact me brakiblog@gmail.com
Naseer Muhammad
braki.co.uk
Thanks for you reply. I’m happy to discuss further with you, but I cannot in good faith partner with Tatchell. Many others have made similar evaluations about his Islamophobia – I would really urge you to read what they’ve written and come to your own conclusions. I personally feel that Tatchell is a grave danger to the kinds of progressive, anti-racist politic I work towards. But he is also an incredibly divisive figure amongst queer anti-racists, and queer Muslims, so I’m doubtful that he would be an effective partner in any sort of dialogue with the broader British Muslim community. If you want to chat about this further, I’m more than willing to do so. Email me at aviva.stahl@gmail.com.