Benjamin Riley
The violent protest on Saturday in Sydney’s CBD against an American-made film has disturbed me to an extent I wasn’t expecting.
The film, allegedly produced by a radical Coptic Christian and designed to provoke, has sparked extreme reactions around the world. An attack at the US diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya last week resulted in the deaths of four Americans.
It is a complex issue.
It appears the film was made specifically to incite violence, and many involved were deceived about its true nature and content. As such, a strong reaction by an already disenfranchised community is understandable.
That said, violence is not acceptable, and I find the incitements to violence depicted in the pictures from Saturday’s protest abhorrent. The most circulated photo showed a young child holding up a sign reading: ‘behead all those who insult the prophet’.
As a gay man and a member of a minority, I try to use my experiences of persecution to empathise with others undergoing similar persecution. I recognise anti-Muslim sentiment in Australia and try to relate to anyone who feels judged and harassed for who they are. I try to remember that as a white male in a wealthy, democratic country I have it pretty good.
But my automatic reaction in support of a protest by an oppressed group is tempered not just by the violence, actual and threatened, but by the knowledge that many fundamentalist Muslims, including perhaps the more radical protesters at the demonstrations in Sydney, are homophobic.
When we constantly hear stories
coming out of countries with fundamentalist Muslim regimes of violence and other human rights abuses against LGBTI communities, it becomes difficult for me to separate my problems with Islamophobia and US military action in the Middle East from the extreme homophobia present in many Muslim communities.
Being a member of a persecuted minority may engender the kind of empathy needed to engage with the experiences of other minorities. But the conflict here between the understanding person I want to be and the person I am, fearful of Islamic homophobia, doesn’t have a clear path to a resolution.
When the tenuous moral high ground that comes from having a minority status conflicts with the tenuous moral high ground of identifying as a progressive leftie, I start to wonder if maybe this high horse I’m perched on isn’t as stable as I thought.
Southpaw Slug 