‘You don’t create an LGBTQI+ paradise by turning every Muslim into a scapegoat,’ says Bruno De Lille Battaille, director-general of a Brussels group of schools, LGBTQI+ activist and former Brussels State Secretary for the Green Party.
Fearless. That is the slogan under which participants in Antwerp Pride will take to the streets this Saturday. According to the organisers, it does not mean that there is nothing we should or may be afraid of. It means that, despite our often justified fears, we still make ourselves visible and claim the right, as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex and queer people, to be who we are. Love is love.
That does not seem too much to ask, does it?
Especially now that De Stem van Vlaanderen, a large-scale survey by VTM and Het Laatste Nieuws, shows that almost 75 per cent of LGBTQI+ people in Flanders feel less accepted today than they did five years ago. And that 53 per cent do not always feel able to be open about their sexual orientation or gender identity. It was also only two weeks ago that an Islamist perpetrator carried out an attack on Berlin Pride.
Is it naïve of me, after reports like these, to hope for broad support and sympathy?
Don’t get me wrong: there was support. Newspapers and broadcasters published articles and reports providing background for a wider audience. And people spoke out, urging others to make sure they attended Antwerp Pride precisely now.
But there was also plenty of pushback. It could usually be summarised like this: “First of all, all those LGBTQIABC-whatever people have nothing to complain about. Here in Belgium, they have everything they want — marriage, adoption, and they can use whichever toilet they like — so what are they whining about? And secondly, if there is a problem at all, it is because of Muslims. But all those rainbow people don’t dare say so. Not very fearless of them.”
I came across such accusations on Facebook, among other places, in response to statements by Çavaria, the Flemish umbrella organisation for LGBTQI+ organisations. The Dutch current affairs programme Nieuwsuur ran a report along similar lines. And on Thursday, Jan Segers, a columnist for Het Laatste Nieuws, was given free rein: he called us “drama queens” — because, according to him, LGBTQI+ rights are not under any pressure here at all — and accused the LGBTQI+ community of not daring to point the finger at “the elephant in the room”, namely “Islam”.
Belgium is, of course, not Uganda, and we do enjoy many rights — although there is still work to be done, for example, when it comes to the rights of intersex people — and there is no witch-hunt against us here. But research does show that social acceptance of LGBTQI+ people among young people has been declining for several years, while survey after survey finds that LGBTQI+ people are confronted all too often with intolerance because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Does that always involve physical violence? No. But constantly having to listen to homophobic “jokes” from colleagues, repeatedly having to assess whether it is safe enough to hold your partner’s hand, or simply being subjected to random abuse takes its toll. A heavy toll.
A few years ago, I experienced it myself once again. On a Saturday morning, I was on Tram 3 heading towards Brussels South Station. Most of the seats were taken, so I was standing in the aisle. And then I got the full blast. A man — drunk, perhaps — started hurling abuse at me in French, calling me gay, a pédé. He threatened to come after me if I looked at him and warned the other passengers that I would rape their children. Fortunately, one of his friends pushed him off the tram at the next stop. It may have lasted only three minutes, but I was shaken for days afterwards. Also — perhaps especially — because not a single person on that entire tram showed me any form of support.
To this day, I have no idea why he picked on me. Or whether he actually knew that I am gay. It does not really matter, because at that moment the man was not only targeting me; he was affecting everyone on that tram. Everyone, gay or straight, was given the message: “If you are LGBTQI+, you had better be careful, because before you know it, they will come after you.”
That is precisely what people who casually respond with “What have you got to complain about?” perhaps cannot imagine: what it would feel like if something similar happened to them. But I know plenty of LGBTQI+ people who can tell stories like this. And for as long as that remains the case, we have every right to take to the streets.
And then there is the elephant in the room: Islam. The fact that, after the Islamist attack on Berlin Pride, Çavaria referred to Voorpost and the manosphere but otherwise spoke only vaguely of “religious extremism” is said to prove that the LGBTQI+ community is tiptoeing around that elephant.
I can partly agree with that criticism. If an attack is committed from an Islamist ideological conviction, then we should say so. Anyone spreading jihadist propaganda that portrays homosexuality as an evil to be fought with violence must be dealt with. Islamist violence against LGBTQI+ people is a real and potentially deadly threat, and we must not minimise it.
The problem is that most of those pointing to the elephant in the room are not talking about Islamism alone. They are targeting all Muslims. But Islamists and Muslims are not synonyms. An Islamist terrorist does not automatically represent every Muslim. A Muslim who morally disapproves of homosexuality can still abide by the law. And just as among Christians, not everyone who calls themselves Muslim adheres to their faith in the same way or with the same degree of strictness. Naming a problem is therefore something quite different from declaring an entire population group to be the problem.
According to figures published by De Morgen in the wake of the attack, Germany has around 6.5 to 7 million Muslims. The newspaper reports that German intelligence services estimate the number of “violence-oriented” Islamists at around 9,000.
Nine thousand violence-oriented Islamists are nine thousand reasons to remain extremely vigilant. But set against 6.5 to 7 million Muslims, those figures also show how absurd it is to hold every Muslim partly responsible.
The Islamists themselves could hardly ask for more. They thrive on polarisation, and by acting like this you push an entire group of Muslims straight into their arms. Anyone committed to an open society is shooting themselves in the foot by doing so.
Because yes, homophobia and transphobia also exist among Muslims outside extremist circles. For example, negative attitudes towards LGBTQI+ people among Muslim young people in Dutch-language secondary education are considerably more prevalent than among Christian or non-religious young people. We should be willing to say that too. But it does not follow that these young people will resort to violence when they encounter gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans or intersex people.
There are also major differences within the Muslim population itself. Girls’ attitudes — even though they are no less religious — are consistently different from those of boys, and there are also plenty of Muslims who have no problem with LGBTQI+ people or who even hold positive attitudes towards them.
Moreover, LGBTQI+ Muslims are almost invariably forgotten in this polarised debate. They do not fit the simplistic story in which “the Muslims” are pitted against “the gays”. They are often confronted with homophobia or transphobia within their own communities, while at the same time facing Islamophobia in wider society or within the LGBTQI+ community. Surely we are not going to abandon them as well?
If we want to set positive change in motion, we have to try to shift certain attitudes. We should not exclude ordinary Muslims or push them into a separate box. On the contrary, we need to engage them in debate. In his book In de ban van Wij en Zij, moral philosopher Patrick Loobuyck argues that people are more likely to nuance their views or break out of tunnel vision when, through contact with a diversity of people and opinions, they are exposed to different ideas.
Simply pointing the finger at them is therefore not an act of courage, as Jan Segers suggests in his column. On the contrary, it is one of the least effective ways of bringing about change.
Moreover, Dutch research into perpetrators shows that offenders often invoke their religion afterwards to justify their behaviour, even though religion itself was frequently not what triggered the violence. Most of all, the perpetrators wanted to prove their masculinity, toughness and loyalty to the group. The manosphere is not explicitly mentioned in these studies, but it certainly seems to play a significant role.
And suppose that tomorrow every Islamist network disappeared. Would no queer child ever be bullied again? Would the far right stop threatening LGBTQI+ people and their rights? Would machismo suddenly vanish from sports clubs, bars and social media?
If you only stand with us when the perpetrator is Muslim, but otherwise ignore or belittle our concerns, you are not an ally. You are using LGBTQI+ people as ammunition in a political battle.
Anyone who thinks they can turn our society into an LGBTQI+ paradise by pointing the finger at every Muslim underestimates just how persistent homophobia and transphobia are. We will not create a safe society by singling out one group on which to unload all our fear and anger. We will create one by taking every act of violence seriously, by having the courage to subject every ideology to critical scrutiny, and by guaranteeing every person the same freedom and protection.
Fearless. Without taboos. But without scapegoats either.
>> Please note that this is a machine generated translation.