British Imperialism Didn’t Cause Palestinian Homophobia
British Imperialism Didn’t Cause Palestinian Homophobia
Blaming the lack of LGBT rights in Gaza on a century-old British penal code is the saddest kind of Hamas apologia.
Imposing Western identity politics onto the Middle East is a formula for moral insanity.
Islamic homophobia is an issue that goes beyond terrorist groups like Hamas. While the Quran’s language regarding homosexual and bisexual behavior is somewhat ambiguous, the hadith, the canonical sayings and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, contain many straightforward prohibitions. In practice, this results in the persecution of LGBT people in both official and extrajudicial ways throughout the Muslim world. LGBT Palestinians face extreme ostracism, sometimes fleeing as refugees or even being kidnapped and beheaded. The authorities also ban the activities of LGBT rights groups. And it isn’t just LGBT Palestinians being oppressed by Hamas in Gaza. Institutional sexism is also part and parcel of Sharia Law. Human rights researchers rank the Palestinian territories among the worst places in the world to be a woman. For Western activists ostensibly concerned about the oppression of marginalized groups to effectively support the continued rule of Hamas over Gaza (to the point that they would even deny Israel the right to self-defense against the terrorist organization) is hypocritical in the extreme.
This is, fairly predictably, probably going to be an unpopular post.
And before some bright spark comes in accusing me of being pro-genocide, Israel can get fucked – just because I'm against Palestinian genocide doesn't mean I have to be blind to this shit.
Hopefully people see that they can oppose both Israel's genocide and Islamist homophobia at the same time. There's no obligation to downplay either.
Right. I'm one of those "deluded" queers for Palestine, but even in peacetime, I wouldn't sashay into Gaza City in assless chaps and hope for the best. There's plenty of homophobia in the world, especially wherever there is Islam, and the British obviously did not invent it.
I would still rather try to defeat homophobia with words than watch homophobes (and their innocent children) get murdered by an army which has its own homophobes, for reasons unrelated to homophobia.
The British Empire gets blamed for a lot of things but at some point, it has to be on the population of a country to move things forward.
Sure, Empires introduce laws but if the successor governments keep them in for nearly 100 years...
Guess who also legalized homosexuality... Britain.
Very basic and low quality argument.
Fun fact, Britain also invented concentration camps. So there use by the Nazis is also the British Empire's fault?
Good post op (not sarcasm)