Judith Butler refuses Berlin Pride Civil Courage Prize 2010
JUDITH BUTLER TURNS DOWN CIVIL COURAGE AWARD FROM BERLIN PRIDE:
‘I MUST
DISTANCE MYSELF FROM THIS RACIST COMPLICITY’
As Berlin Queer and
Trans Activists of Colour and Allies we welcome Judith Butler’s decision
to turn down the Zivilcourage Prize awarded by Berlin Pride. We are
delighted that a renowned theorist has used her celebrity status to
honour queer of colour critiques against racism, war, borders, police
violence and apartheid. We especially value her bravery in openly
critiquing and scandalising the organisers’ closeness to homonationalist
organisations. Her courageous speech is a testimony to her openness for
new ideas, and her readiness to engage with our long activist and
academic work, which all too often happens under conditions of
isolation, precariousness, appropriation and instrumentalisation.
Sadly
this is happening once again, for the people of colour organisations
who according to Butler should have deserved the award more than her are
not mentioned once in the press reports to date. Butler offered the
prize to GLADT (www.gladt.de), LesMigraS (www.lesmigras.de), SUSPECT and
ReachOut (www.reachoutberlin.de), yet the one political space mentioned
in the reports is the Transgenial Christopher Street Day, a
white-dominated alternative Pride event. Instead of racism, the press
focuses on a simple critique of commercialisation. This even though
Butler herself was quite clear: ‘I must distance myself from complicity
with racism, including anti-Muslim racism.’ She notes that not just
homosexuals, but also ‘bi, trans and queer people can be used by those
who want to wage war.’
The CSD, via Renate Künast of the Green Party
(who appeared to have difficulties pronouncing the award winner’s name
and grasping basic aspects of her writings) introduced Butler as a
determined critic. Five minutes later, the same critical determination
caused the faces of presenters to drop. Rather than engage with the
speech in any way, Jan Salloch und Ole Lehmann could think of nothing
better than blanketly refuse any charge of racism and attack the ca. 50
queers of colour and allies who had come out in Butler’s support: ‘You
can scream all you like. You are not the majority. That’s enough.’ The
finale was an imperialist fantasy matched by the backdrop of the
Brandenburger Tor: ‘Pride will just continue in its programme... No
matter what... Worldwide and here in Berlin... This is how it’s always
been and will always be.’
In the past years, racism has indeed been
the red thread of international Pride events, from Toronto to Berlin, as
well as of the wider gay landscape (see queer of colour theorists’
Jasbir Puar’s and Amit Rai’s early critique of this in their 2002
article ‘Monster Terrorist Fag’). In 2008, the Berlin Pride motto was
‘Hass du was dagegen?’, which might translate as ‘You go’ a problem or
wha’?’. Homophobia and Transphobia are redefined as the problems of
youth of colour who apparently don’t speak proper German, whose
Germanness is always questioned, and who simply don’t belong. 2008 is
also the year that the hate crimes discourse enters more significantly
into German sexual politics. Its rapid assimilation was aided by the
fact that the hatefully criminal homophobe was already known: migrants,
who are already criminalised, and are incarcerated and even deported
with ever growing ease. This moral panic is made respectable by dubious
media practices and so-called scientific studies: Where every case of
violence that can be connected to a gay, bi or trans person (no matter
if the apparent perpetrator is white or of Colour, and no matter if the
basis is homophobia, transphobia or a traffic altercation) is circulated
as the latest proof of what we all know already - that queers,
especially white men it seems, are worst off of all, and that ‘the
homophobic migrants’ are the main cause for this. This increasingly
accepted truth is by no small measure the fruit of the work of
homonationalist organizations like the Lesbian and Gay Federation
Germany and the gay helpline Maneo, whose close collaboration with Pride
ultimately caused Butler to reject the award. This work largely
consists in media campaigns that repeatedly represent migrants as
‘archaic’, ‘patriarchal’, ‘homophobic’, violent, and unassimilable.
Nevertheless, one of these organizations now ironically receives public
funding in order to ‘protect’ people of colour from racism. The ‘Rainbow
Protection Circle against Racism and Homophobia’ in the gaybourhood
Schöneberg was spontaneously greeted by the district mayor with an
increase in police patrols. As anti-racists, we sadly know what more
police (LGBT or not) mean in an area where many people of colour also
live – especially at times of ‘war on terror’ and ‘security, order and
cleanliness.’
It is this tendency of white gay politics, to replace a
politics of solidarity, coalitions and radical transformation with one
of criminalization, militarization and border enforcement, which Butler
scandalizes, also in response to the critiques and writings of queers of
colour. Unlike most white queers, she has stuck out her own neck for
this. For us, this was a very courageous decision indeed.
Yeliz
Çelik, Sanchita Basu, Lucy Chebout, Lisa Thaler, Jin Haritaworn, Jen
Petzen,Aykan Safoğlu and Cengiz Barskanmaz von SUSPECT
20 June, 2010.
SUSPECT
is a new group of queer and trans migrants, Black people, people of
colour and allies. Our aim is to monitor the effects of hate crimes
debates and to build communities which are free from violence in all its
interpersonal and institutional forms.
Source : No Homo Nationalism
Photo & article en français : I bin ein berliner queer.