Skip to main content

Vigilance

Last year, as part of the Tour of the British Isles, organised by the choir I am a member of, we went to London, Wavendon (near Milton Keynes), Dublin, Manchester, Brighton and Belfast. You can look at the pics here. Everybody had told me I would love Dublin and I was quite prepared to do so, but in the end I only found it very provincial and too cute and boring. Belfast was the surprised however. A place with such vibe, very much on the fence between its past and its future. A real sense of anticipation. I have been in the choir for nearly three years now and Belfast was probably the most special gig I had the luck to take part in. It wasn't the most glamourous venue or the biggest crowd by far but something special happened that night. We were there in support of the first Gay Pride for the city. Our audience had to pass a group of 20 odd bigots (Christians Against Sodomy I think they called themselves, which does say a lot about where their minds are), who had decided to demonstrate outside the venue where we were performing. After the show, we all went to a party organised in our honour in one of the local gay pubs (the Crows' Nest, I think). Everyone let their hair down and we all really had a great time. What was so special about performing there, was that in addition to feeling that we were making even more of a difference than usual, we had to realise how easy we had it being gay men in London and how easy it was to forget about that.

Last Saturday night, several people got mugged on the South Bank; all of them were gay and the police still believe at the time I am writing this that the attacks were motivated by homophobia. One of the victims, David Morley later died of his (40!) wounds. The cruel irony is that five years ago he had survived the bomb attack at the Admiral Duncan pub in Soho where he was working at the time. Another reminder that things are not as rosy as they may seem. This one quite literally much closer from home: it happened about ten minutes walk from where I live, in a part of London where I regularly find myself alone at night, walking home. Tonight I took part in the vigil organised in Soho to remember Mr Morley. There, with the LGMC and a several hundred people, we tried once again to make a difference through our singing; we tried to make sense of what had happened and of our grief and anger.

As of tonight a total of 7 people have been arrested in relation to this; apparently all of them teenagers. Commentators point out that reported homophobic crimes have very much been on the rise in the past few months citing as a reason for this the increased confidence in the way the police will deal with the victims inciting people to reports attacks more easily rather than an actual increase in the number of attacks. There is probably a good amount of truth in this; after all these people have the figures and studies to support their arguments. However I would like to suggest another possible reason, which I can only support by a few observations I have made in the past few months. I think that it is actually possibly the case that the number of attacks is on the rise, simply because gay people are feeling more confident about affirming who they are these days. Since, say, the beginning of this year, I have notice more and more frequently gay couple holding hands in areas quite remote from the relatively safe haven that is Soho. Is it not possible that the increased visibility of gay people, not supported by education is perceived as a taunt by homophobes, some of whom can not resist it? We also learn that at least two of the persons arrested for Saturday's attack were black. Is it not possible to draw a link with the current campaign led by Outrage! and Peter Tatchell against the so-called "murder music" of a very limited number of jamaican dancehall singers? Bigots getting angered by the good results of the campaign?

Whatever the reasons, and even in London, the struggle is not finished. We have come a long way; we seem to have found most of the silver lining; let's not forget about the cloud just yet!

-------------------------------------

A last minute piece of news:

On the Evening Standard Website
On 365Gay.com

-------------------------------------
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Please leave your comment here. Note that comments are moderated and only those in French or in English will be published. Thank you for taking the time to read this blog and to leave a thought.

Popular posts from this blog

A Short History of the Elephant and Castle and Its Name

Last night I attended a lecture by local historian Stephen Humphrey who discussed the general history of the Elephant & Castle, focussing more particularly on what he called its heyday (between 1850 and 1940). This is part of a week-long art project ( The Elephant Project ) hosted in an empty unit on the first floor of the infamous shopping centre, aiming to chart some of the changes currently happening to the area. When an historian starts talking about the Elephant and Castle, there is one subject he can not possibly avoid, even if he wanted to. Indeed my unsuspecting announcement on Facebook that I was attending such talk prompted a few people to ask the dreaded question: Where does the name of the area come from, for realz? Panoramic view of the Elephant and Castle around 1960/61. Those of us less badly informed than the rest have long discarded the theory that the name comes from the linguistic deformation of "Infanta de Castille", a name which would have become at
19 comments
Read more

Rev. Peter Mullen's Blog

Rev. Peter Mullen is the chaplain to the London Stock Exchange and the rector of St Michael's Cornhill and St Sepulchre without Newgate in the City. Rev. Peter Mullen was also until recently a blogger. Sadly the result of his cyber labour seem to have been deleted but Google has thankfully cached some of it and I have saved a copy for posterity, just in case. The deletion of Rev. Mullen's writings might just have something to do with the fact that last week, the Evening Standard and then the Daily Mail published an article (the same article actually) about some of those very writings (even though the elements of said writings being quoted had been published in June this year, at the time of the blessing ceremony which took place between two members of the Church of England in St Bartholomew the Great - picture ). In the article, we learned what the Rev. thinks about gay people and what should be done to them: We ["Religious believers"] disapprove of homosexuality
8 comments
Read more

Liam Messam and Tamati Ellison Swap Jerseys

I am having a bit of a vacuous evening looking at images of pretty rugby players. Addidas, with its latest viral campaign, Jersey Swap , seems to be squarely aiming at the gay market with a selection of five antipodean rugby players, visitor to the website can select and see take their tops off and... well... swap jersey (those interested can create posters too). My favorites of the bunch are Liam Messam and Tamati Ellison . The pictures of their pretty faces and bulging naked torsos (excuse me while I sit down for a second!) included to this post should tell you why. A job well done for Addidas. This will go round the Internet for a while, I think.
2 comments
Read more