The Future of Queer Anti-Capitalism
Some Opinions from Mark Pendleton
This article is based on my article "Queers, anti-capitalism and
war" originally published in "Word is Out - online journal for gay,
lesbian and queer liberation", Number 1, December 2001. The original
article contains a more detailed historical section, an analysis of
the politics of the new queer anti-capitalist groups and a more
detailed discussion of conservative queer responses to the war. It
can be found at http://www.wordisout.info.
Since late 1999 and the demonstrations at the Millennium Round of
the World Trade Organization (WTO) talks in Seattle, the Western
world has seen the birth of a new strand of radical activism - a
strand that variously comes under the banner of anti-corporate,
anti-exploitation, anti-globalisation or anti-capitalist activism.
This movement, while new to the West has been a significant feature
of the struggles of a variety of people throughout the majority world
over the last ten years. The year 2000 saw this global anti-capitalist
movement begin to emerge in Australia with the World Economic Forum
(the founder of the WTO) holding its Asia-Pacific Forum at Melbourne's
Crown Casino from September 11 to 13. A large demonstration, popularly
known as S11 (after the date) involved many layers of students,
environmentalists, unionists and others. One particularly large and
vocal group within the S11 demonstration was the Queer Bloc, a group
of around 100 queer activists from a variety of Australian and
international locations that came together to join the movement
on a radical queer basis.
Since September 2000, the growth of queer activist groups has
continued. This article was originally to be a discussion of the
role of queer groups in anti-capitalist action and the politics
of queer anti-capitalism twelve months after S11. Unfortunately,
twelve months to the day from this seminal moment in the Australian
Left's history, world incidents intervened to shift the ground
beneath our feet. Queer groups had been building with others for
mass mobilisations against the Commonwealth Heads of Government
Meeting (CHOGM) that was to be held in Brisbane on 6-9 October
2001. CHOGM was postponed and the actions on October 6 were
transformed into a large anti-war rally. The Queer presence
was loud and vocal with anti-war and 'no-one is illegal' messages,
but the changing world situation has brought to the surface many
questions that had been an undercurrent throughout, questions
about the future directions of an anti-capitalist queer movement,
sustainability and more.
This article then, will trace the history of the new queer
groups and their involvement in anti-capitalist activism over
the last couple of years before venturing some opinions on the
future of queer anti-capitalism in the context of a rapidly
changing and increasingly hostile global environment.
History and Formation
In the lead-up to the World Economic Forum in Melbourne, several
groups formed in various parts of the country. Most prominent, at
least initially, were Queers United to Eradicate Economic
Rationalism (QUEER) in Melbourne and Queers Against Corporate
Exploitation (QuACE) in Brisbane. Both were formed with the goal
of getting queer people to the S11 demonstrations and were formed
out of cross-campus student queer groups, trade union queer groups
and other community organizations. Since the success of S11, these
groups have continued to be involved in various direct actions,
including actions against Archbishop George Pell and his renowned
homophobia, protests against the Howard government's proposed
changes to IVF laws to limit access to single women and lesbians
and participating in the M1 demonstrations at the various Stock
Exchanges around the country on 1 May 2001.
Earlier, in 1999, a group called Collective Action Against
Homophobia (CAAH) formed in Sydney to organise a response to a
conference of Christians involved in 'ex-gay' ministries. Over
the next year, CAAH co-ordinated a variety of actions including
a large 400-500 strong rally recreating the route and timing of
the first Sydney Gay Mardi Gras in 1978. This was basically the
final action of the original CAAH and due to a lack of those
willing to take on coordination roles, it in essence ceased
functioning. Sydney was without an anti-capitalist collective
like Melbourne's QUEER or Brisbane's QuACE until early 2001,
when activists got together to form Gays and Lesbians Against
Multinationals (GLAM) to organise a float for the Mardi Gras
parade in March. GLAM also involved itself in a variety of
actions before re-morphing into a new CAAH, Community Action
Against Homophobia.
Before any of these groups began a small group of activists
in Perth got together (in the mid 1990s) to form Queer Radical.
This group has been involved in a variety of actions, from
alternative queer parties and art, through to speakouts on
drug law reform and sex-worker advocacy. Queer Radical,
like the other groups, brings an anti-capitalist, direct
action perspective to queer activism as well as linking its
activism to broader issues of discrimination, oppression and
marginalisation. At the end of 2001 Queer Radical started
meeting on a regular basis for the first time in a number
of years. In a strange twist, at the same time as Queer Radical
began to grow again, QUEER disintegrated due to internal
tensions and political conflict and, with the cancellation
of CHOGM, QuACE also has had difficulty in motivating people
to be active.
Ideology and Politics
The core belief of these new groups is that homophobia is
perpetuated by the economic system of capitalism. An equation
of homosexuality with capitalism is not something new for the
gay and lesbian community but it is something that is relatively
rare (at least in recent times). In a pamphlet produced for a
QUEER contingent in the parade on 21 January 2001 during Melbourne's
major annual queer community festival Midsumma, the anti-capitalist
perspective of these groups becomes evident.
The material conditions of queer people will never improve
from the 'pink dollar' and consumer power alone. Our rightful
place in society cannot be bought, and liberation from violence,
discrimination and heterosexism will not come from consumption.
Our struggle can never be left to multinational corporations,
to politicians or major political parties. We are here because
we believe in activism, and empowering individuals to work
together at a grass roots level to fight for our rights and
self-determination as queer people.
QUEER's belief in the economic basis of oppression is shared
with the other groups around the country and this belief spills
over into one of the more in-depth and highly developed analyses
of the commodification of queer identity. As the liberalising of
legislative restrictions on queerness has continued, the promotion
of the 'pink dollar' has grown. The 'pink dollar' phenomenon is
based on a belief that gays and lesbians have high disposable
incomes due largely to the propensity of same-sex couples
to have dual incomes and no children. Various studies have
demonstrated that the pink dollar is a myth however, and have
shown that same-sex couples (women particularly) actually have
lower disposable incomes than heterosexual couples. Regardless,
there is a growing middle and upper class in queer communities
and this has been identified as a prospective market by
corporate interests. Gays and lesbians are increasingly
being shown in a narrow and 'socially accepted' way in the
media. Images of free-spending, commodity-focussed, middle-class
queer men dominate the media and lesbians are either products
of (straight) male fantasy, ultra chic or just accidents.
For many years, queer activist groups have analysed the
process of commodification of sexuality as a negative and
limiting thing. This analysis, however, has rarely translated
into organised resistance but more often a postmodern 'culture-
jamming' approach to activism. This is most clearly demonstrated
in the example of US activist group Queer Nation. Queer Nation,
active in the early 1990s devoted much of their time and resources
to the goal of cultural representation and visibility actions,
including reclamation of space through kiss-ins at straight
venues, altering of corporate logos to make affirmative
statements (such as replacing the P in GAP with a Y), and
developing Pink Panther community policing forces wearing
'Bash Back' t-shirts.
The new queer anti-capitalist groups largely reject the
notion that cultural disruption in the form that Queer Nation
expressed itself is the means of achieving social change. Where
Queer Nation wore co-opted GAP shirts, these new groups are
actively involved in the Fairwear campaign and other campaigns
to eliminate sweatshops (a core basis of the GAP brand's success).
Where Queer Nation individualised (and queered) policing, the new
groups challenged the police in militant and direct ways through
events like S11, M1 (on May Day 2001) as well as a general
commitment to civil disobedience and direct action. Where
Queer Nation tried to develop space within capitalism, these
groups advocate the abolition of capitalism.
The War on "Terrorism" and Building a "War" on Capitalism
The events of September 11 and the subsequent American
military response throw up several new questions for the
burgeoning anti-capitalist movement and raise others to the
surface. From right-wingers such as US Trade Representative
Robert Zoellick using the opportunity to push through a faster
free trade agenda, with comments such as 'trade promotes the
values at the heart of this protracted struggle', to pseudo
progressives arguing that we should support the war in defence
of freedom, the conflation by the pro-capitalists of the issues
of war and capitalism is all-pervasive. The response of anti-
capitalists must equally conflate the two.
The 'War on Terrorism' is being couched as a battle of
'freedom' versus 'oppression' and some gay activists are
joining the bandwagon. In an article entitled 'Why We should
Support This War', conservative gay author Andrew Sullivan
argues that war is the reason why equality progresses. He
justifies this argument by characterising World War I as a
moment of breakthrough for the women's movement and World War
II as 'perhaps the most racially integrating event in this
country's history'; he then goes one to argue that the current
war could be the defining moment in the struggle for 'gay
equality' as long as we fight to allow gays to openly serve
in the military (Sullivan 2001). That, apparently, is the
marker of 'gay equality'. Sullivan's colleague Stephen H.
Miller goes further by arguing that one of the positives of
this whole war will be that the 'American left in general,
and the gay left in particular, [will be] now exposed as the
extremist, infantile, America-hating whiners that they are'
(Miller 2001).
It is clear from comments such as these that the right is
organising and broadening their attacks. If anything the stakes
for the anti-capitalist movement have simply been raised. Public
services are under greater threat from governments hell-bent on
warmongering; civil liberties are curtailed; people on the margins
of society, like refugees, are scapegoated; workers are losing
their jobs by the thousands. The events of September 11 and beyond
have not changed the world for the better or the worse; they are
simply a symptom of capitalism and should be responded to as such.
The challenge for the anti-capitalist movement, queer or otherwise,
is to continue and escalate the fight against capitalism and to
continue it by building in our communities. It is simply not
enough to grandstand, to call 'peace' rallies or to have voted
for the Greens (or the anonymous (irrelevant?) Socialist Alliance)
in the Federal Election. It is equally not enough to sell a
revolutionary paper in the local mall. What is called for is
a continuation, and further development, of the strategies of
the radical queer groups such as QUEER, CAAH, Queer Radical
and QuACE - strategies that demand engagement, education and
empowerment of communities and individuals within communities.
The challenge for Queer groups and individuals is to examine
their participation within the community and the ways in which
we engage with the "pink dollar" forces of mainstream,
conservative queer "leaders". These conservative forces
within our communities need to be challenged through
engagement, confrontation, education and criticism. When
there is opportunity to put aside differences to fight a
common enemy, like the Howard government, then we should.
When there is a necessity to articulate difference, like in
opposing the lobby groups' focus on superannuation and gay
marriage, then we must not be afraid to do so. The appropriate
strategy will depend on the circumstances.
Queer groups and individuals over the coming few months
can be active in ways such as the CAAH float in this year's
Mardi Gras parade under the banner of "Global Pride: Love
without Borders" or by participating in the Woomera 2002
actions or by organising through campus queer collectives.
Bringing a queer politics to the anti-capitalist activism
of the last few years was one of the major successes of the
queer groups and actions like Woomera provide an opportunity
to extend that to, for example, look at the relationships
between queer people and refugees.
Whether or not queer anti-capitalist groups operate on a
regular basis (and I am not sure that they will), queer
people will continue to organise. Building alliances where
possible and standing separate where necessary, queer anti-
capitalists can continue the exciting growth that the queer
anti-capitalist movements experienced post-S11 (2000) and
continue to contribute queerly to building an anti-capitalist
movement that can mount a serious challenge to the evils of
war and capitalism.
Now is not the time for resignation, rest or reform, it is
the time to continue the fight against war in all its forms,
whether the weapons be missiles or mercury poisoning, guns or
greenhouse gas emissions, tanks or trade. It is the time to
fight war by fighting capitalism.
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