By Jon Pattee
Senior English Editor
Albawaba.com -- Amman
Egypt appears to have hit on the time-tested tactic of gay-bashing to distract a restless public from deep economic woes and Islamists’ claims of government immorality.
Just as Roman emperors regaled their subjects with circuses and spectacles of violence, Egypt has of late witnessed a series of eye-grabbing headlines guaranteed to bait conservative religious scholars and ordinary Muslims alike, distracting them from government inefficiency and widespread unemployment.
This spring’s spate of tabloid charges and counter-charges mixed sex with Egypt’s perennial Coptic Christian-Muslim frictions. The latest scandal also involves sex, but this time between men. A July 18 police raid on a party where “immoral” activities were allegedly underway, coupled with the breathless attentions of sales-minded newspaper editors, have successfully channeled the public mood into self-righteous gay-bashing rather than self-interested political activity.
According to Hossam Baghat, the international relations coordinator for the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, 52 “suspected gay men” face charges of immorality after being arrested at the party on a tourist boat “that has long been known as a gathering place for the Egyptian gay community.”
“The case involves religious beliefs and morality, two elements that have always succeeded in keeping people engaged for a long time,” said a lawyer from a center defending four of the accused, quoted by Baghat in his article Explaining Egypt’s Targeting of Gays.
Baghat says that Egyptian men facing such charges are at risk of “losing their jobs, families, friends and social status, as well as spending up to five years in prison.”
Observers might ask how gay-bashing could prove a useful political tool. Actually, history shows that there is nothing quite like homophobia to shake up the political landscape and ruin or kill opponents.
Nazi authorities, for example, used the charge of homosexuality to discredit political opponents, according to the Holocaust Teacher Resource Center Online. The center notes that "show trials in 1936 and 1937 alleging rampant homosexuality in the priesthood, attempted to undercut the power of the Roman Catholic Church...which many Nazi officials considered their most powerful potential enemy.”
The Christian church, ever the watchdog of public morality and its own power, has its own record in this regard. A review by author Michael Alvear of Byrne Fone’s Homophobia: A History recounts that the 14th century saw Europe's first execution for sodomy, in which a knife maker was burned alive for engaging in what the church called an act “detested by God.”
“Thousands of executions followed in the next centuries, especially with the Inquisition. In France, officials burned records of sodomy trials along with the perpetrator because the sin was "so hideous that it should not be named," according to Fone.
For that matter, in the United Sates, so proud of being the cradle of personal freedoms, Sen. Joseph McCarthy clawed his way to power in part by claiming that "sexual perverts have infiltrated our government" and were "perhaps as dangerous as the actual Communists."
Fone’s work recounts how in 1950 the federal government issued a document entitled Employment of Homosexuals and other Sex Perverts in Government, "setting the stage for yet more labels for homosexuals: Communists, security leaks and, most of all, traitors.”
The Egyptian government’s use of the trusty tool of gay-bashing reflects two main objectives, according to Baghat’s analysis: to distract the public from an economic crisis, and to shore up its position as a defender of public morality in the face of sharp criticism from Islamists. After all, the most vocal opponents of Mubarak are strong followers of Islam, and his regime can only survive by being perceived as in step with the views of Egypt’s Muslim majority.
The time may be ripe for a round of gay-bashing, since the profile of the community has been rising.
"Homosexuality is becoming more apparent in the Egyptian society," Dr. Josette Abdalla, assistant professor of psychology at the American University in Cairo (AUC), told the Middle East Times. "This is in part the result of more exposure to mass media, Western influences and more access to papers, satellite dishes and TV."
But the ruthless political jockeying embodied in the current trial obscures two more sincere sides of the conflict over homosexuality in the Arab World.
On the one hand, hyped-up show trials encourage a mentality of vengefulness and anger far removed from the Quran’s calls for justice and careful, dispassionate consideration of evidence in alleged cases of sexual immorality.
Although there is consensus among Islamic scholars that homosexuality is sinful, the Sha'fi school of legal thought, for example, requires a minimum of four adult male witnesses before a person can be found guilty of a homosexual act.
In the other trench would be Queer Jihad, previously called the Muslim Homosexual Resource Center. The center estimates that there are about 50 million gay and lesbian Muslims in the world. The figure appears reasonable, as it would include only about five percent of the total membership of the Islamic faith. Serious researchers of sexuality have arrived at a much higher percentage of gays and lesbians in the population of the world as a whole.
The show trials recently opened in Egypt can hardly be expected to lead to justice or understanding for either the 52 accused or their 50 million brothers and sisters scattered throughout the region.
In short, the Egyptian government looks poised to give itself a short political reprieve from public pressure and Islamist competition by making 52 human sacrifices to the courts and tabloids. But it should be remembered that conditioning “the masses” to love spectacles of violence and vengeance could ricochet back with unexpected consequences, particularly in Egypt's pressure-cooker society.
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
