Category: Blog posts

Originally published in the Sydney Star Observer (online), 23 February 2012

Imagine for a moment this scenario.

Let’s say you’re a young man living in conservative rural Australia. As you grow older you begin to realise you’re attracted to other men. Expected to stay in the family business for the rest of your life, your sexuality now becomes a major issue.

You know that if you come out, you will be kicked out, and with no higher education or future employment prospects it is a risk you can’t take.

For you, your only options are to spend the rest of your life hiding your sexuality or to simply end it all.

It is tragic realities such as this that are faced by too many, which is why young gay men are 3.7 times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual counterparts — a figure that increases for same-sex attracted women and even more for bisexual people and trans* people.

Or let’s think of another scenario.

Imagine you’re trans*. Throughout your entire life you have faced discrimination for your gender identity. Now, unemployed, you continue to find it almost impossible to find work, mostly because of the discrimination you face because of your gender identity.

If this is you, you are one of the approximate 9 percent of Australian trans* people who are unemployed today (statistics are from 2008, with this number being more than double the national average at the time).

Stories such as this are too common for my liking.

Trans*, gay, lesbian, bi, intersex, asexual and queer people face a range of different and varied forms of discrimination every day. As a young gay man, I have seen this sort of discrimination firsthand.

It is for this reason that the global queer movement formed. Queer members of our society decided it was time for these injustices to come to an end and for our community to gain its liberation.

Yet, as the queer movement evolves, so many of these stories are being untold. Despite the fact my story as a young, white, middle class queer man is being told, many queer people are still without a voice.

The mainstream queer movement (i.e. the big organisations with the big money) have become focused around a predominately middle to upper class queer agenda. The movement has moved away from queer liberation, to instead focus on allowing a few, special members of the queer community to gain access to the heteropatriarchal society.

For example, for years now the queer movement has become solely focused on a few single goals — mainly those of civil unions and marriage ‘rights’.

Marriage equality has become an all-consuming activity.

Instead of fighting for queer liberation as a whole, we have become obsessed with accessing heteropatriarchal relationship systems. Our queer organisations have now been replaced with those such as Australian Marriage Equality, who are dominating political space. It is now almost impossible to read anything about queer liberation without it being about marriage equality.

And with all of this focus on marriage equality, many other issues have begun to fall by the wayside. Marriage equality has become an all-consuming part of the queer agenda, sucking all oxygen in the broader public space away from a broader discussion on queer liberation.

For example, the organiser of a marriage rights forum (@ToroProduction & @CosmicRami), which featured Kristina Keneally, had this to say to a concerned member of the community:
katedoak Kate Doak: @ ToroProduction Question: Is tonight only on marriage #equality, or are you guys planning on debating other #lgbt issues? cc @KKeneally
_ToroProduction Randel Morris: @katedoak focused on marriage equality tonight, but have lots of LGBT issues we will be fighting for soon! #equality #lgbt
katedoak Kate Doak: @ToroProduction Before or after marriage #equality passes? High #lgbt youth unemployment levels = more pressing than marriage @KKeneally
CosmicRami Rami Social & Mobile: @ katedoak Def. an Issue we wish to discuss down the track, we will be raising that point in a separate future forum 🙂 #equality #lgbt

The message here is clear. Marriage equality is the biggest issue we need to deal — others can wait.

Even when the queer movement does move beyond marriage equality, the campaigns and victories still have a middle class feeling to them. For example, there was a recent (and important) victory over gender identification on passports, which meant that people will no longer have to have gender reassignment surgery before they change their gender on their passport.

When it occurred, this victory was held up by many around the country, who proudly stated “Look, we can focus on marriage equality and still have important victories in other areas”. What this analysis fails to recognise was that it was a victory that was due almost solely to the work of trans* activists, with very little mainstream queer involvement.

Beyond this, the changes still have a very middle class feel to them. Changes to passports do very little for those trans* people who are still unemployed. It is also only those who are wealthy enough to be able to travel who can access passports and gain the benefits of the gender identification changes implemented.

For many, the campaigns the mainstream queer movement are focusing on mean nothing. Marriage means nothing if you can’t even face coming out. A passport is useless if you can’t get a job and therefore can’t afford to travel.

For many, the issues are so much bigger and the problems so much worse.

While we, upper to middle class queers, fight for marriage ‘rights’, there are those who still can’t come out in their community because of discrimination. There are those who commit suicide because they cannot face the homophobia in their community. There are those who cannot get a job because of discrimination they face from potential employers.

There are so many stories that are far more harrowing than someone being unable to get married that simply aren’t being addressed.

I am a gay, white, middle class Canberran in a long-term stable relationship. I am the epitome of the type of person who is likely to benefit from a change to the Marriage Act.

Yet, even as I see this coming closer, I continue to become more and more disillusioned with a queer movement that is becoming so narrow that it is excluding the very people it should be empowering.

Originally published on the blog, Plan to Win, 13 February 2012

Simon Copland reviews Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky, the classic text on community organising. This is another review in our series on recommended reading for campaigners, community organisers, and other activists. What books have you learnt from, been challenged by, and found inspiring? What books have informed your activist practices?  Share your recommendations and reviews.

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Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals, bySaul Alinsky, is essential reading for any radical who wants to create real change in the world. The book contains Alinsky’s codification of the ‘organising model’ of community change, and is generally considered the key text in the development of community organising.Rules for Radicals was published in 1971 and Alinsky drew on his experiences as a community organiser working with poorer and African American communities throughout the United States from the 1930s.

Alinsky’s organising model is based on the idea of generating durable power for an organisation through bringing communities together to act collectively for common goals. The model is now used in many unions and community organisations around the world and this book is an important resource for anyone who wants to do community organising well.

Alinsky covers a range of topics in Rules for Radicals, including discussions on the purpose of radical movements, ‘means and ends’ in campaigning, choosing issues to organise around, selecting targets, getting campaigns going, developing tactics, and communication strategies.

In developing this model, Alinsky develops what he calls a ‘pragmatic primer for realistic radicals’. It is designed to allow radicals to know “the difference between being a realistic radical and being a rhetorical radical”. Throughout the text he looks at pragmatic ways organisations and radicals can work to create change. For example, when discussing tactics he suggests:

“For an elementary illustration of tactics, take parts of your face as the point of reference; your eyes, your ears and your nose. First the eyes; if you have organised a vast, mass-based people’s organisation, you can parade it visibly before the enemy and openly show your power. Second the ears; if your organisation is small in numbers, then do what Gideon did: conceal the members in the dark but raise a din and clamor that will make the listener believe that your organisation numbers many more than it does. Third, the nose; if your organisation is too tiny even for noise, stink up the place.”

Using this practical basis, Alinsky outlines the realistic ways organisations can develop campaigns. One of the most interesting areas in this discussion is his work on how radical organisations can justify means in order to achieve their ends. When discussing means and ends, Alinsky states:

“That perennial question, “Does the end justify the means?” is meaningless as it stands; the real and only question regarding the ethics of means and ends is, and always has been, “Does this particular end justify this particular mean?”

In other words, Alinsky argues that there are no clear lines for defining what ‘justifiable means’ are, but rather that justification is dependent on the context of the campaign and issue. This is particularly relevant given the power structures in our society, where those who are fighting for change (who are often the ones who get caught up in discussions about the ethics of means and ends) are fighting against people with a large amount of power who often have little care about the ethics of their means. Alinsky therefore states that:

“The practical revolutionary will understand Goethe’s “conscience is the virtue of observers and not of agents of action”; in action, one does not always enjoy the luxury of a decision that is consistent both with one’s individual conscience and the good of mankind (sic). The choice must always be for the latter.”

Alinsky develops this idea further by outlining a range of rules for how organisations can determine the ethics of their means and ends. Two key rules are:

“The third rule of the ethics of means and ends is that in war the end justifies almost any means.”
“The ninth rule of the ethics of means and ends is that any effective means is automatically judged by the opposition as being unethical.”

The discussion on means and ends is just one area where Alinsky challenges much of the dominant discourse around movements for change. Throughout his work, Alinsky argues that much of our strategic decisions about ethics are made out of context, and that this is not a practical way to achieve change. And this is what is so important about his work. In many ways Alinsky’s work is an analysis of flawed approaches to social change (even today) and a call out for change. The great thing is that he also provides realistic, radicals ways for this to be achieved.

Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals is an essential work for any realistic radical. If you are working to create change in your community, make sure you get a copy. 5 stars!

Originally published in FUSE, December 2011

In 2009 I spent a year in Sweden. Around August Stockholm held their annual pride march. The march is huge, often attracting around 500,000 viewers. This year, it was held approximately 6 months after the Swedish Government, with an overwhelming majority, approved same-sex marriage in the country. The passage of the law followed a huge campaign in the country to see same-sex marriage become a reality.

Coming to the march, I was interested to see how a queer movement would react to such an achievement and move forward. What I found was pretty amazing. First, the theme of the march was ‘how does heteropatriachy affect you?’ (roughly translated), a pretty strong indication of a movement that was not willing to settle with same-sex marriage as their end goal. The second amazing fact was the size, and energy of the march, and from what I saw in my year in Sweden, the movement around it. It was clear that same-sex marriage had not gotten rid of the momentum for the Swedish queer movement. In fact it probably helped it. Same-sex marriage was clearly seen as one victory on a ladder to much wider societal change.

Looking at the Sweden, I think there is much that the Australian queer movement can learn from their experience. Momentum in Australia around same-sex marriage is so strong at the moment that it is, in many ways sucking the oxygen out of most other high-profile queer issues. The campaign also looks certain to come to a head soon, particularly after the ALP National Conference at the end of 2011 (note: this article was written before the national conference). From there, activists should have a pretty good idea about where the same-sex marriage campaign is moving. It is almost certain that there will be a vote on the issue in Parliament in 2012, with an almost equal chance that the bill will be passed as it is defeated.

So, what should we do after such a vote? How should we approach the next 12 months? What happens if same-sex marriage passes? What happens if it fails?

One of the key things I have learnt from a range of training in movement politics (which has not be completely exhaustive) is that setting up stepping stones to a greater victory is essential to movement success. It is important to be able to identify achievable goals that can lead to eventual, long-term success. This allows us to have identifiable victories that can lead towards long-term success. For example, for someone running an election campaign, the election of a particular candidate should be seen as an identifiable victory that is part of longer term success (i.e. forming long-term social, environmental and economic change through Parliamentary means).

Same-sex marriage should be seen in a similar vein. Whilst we may have disagreements about the value of marriage for queer people (something I am happy to engage in), for those who are advocating and campaigning for it, it should be seen as one potential, identifiable victory, that is part of long-term success. Same-sex marriage is part of a broader campaign to change the way our society operates and to bring an end to the heteropatriachy. It is by no means the be all and end all of queer politics.

One of the key elements of ensuring that these sorts of strategies work is being clear that the stepping stones on the way to a greater victory are just one part of this long-term change. This is important at two points of time.

First, social movements need to be able to clearly articulate that achievable goals are just part of a broader change desired in society. In the case of same-sex marriage for example, it continues to be essential that we articulate that same-sex marriage isn’t the be all and end all. And whilst many of us consider it to be an essential element to change in our society (noting that many others don’t), we cannot see this as our end goal. This means being realistic in campaigns and acknowledging that there are other elements to the broader movement that just same-sex marriage.

This is an issue that has to be addressed for queer activists. For many, it can now be seen that same-sex marriage has in many ways become the sole goal of the queer movement. Organisations such as ‘Australian Marriage Equality’ and ‘Equal Love’, who both focus almost solely on same-sex marriage, are now dominating the public sphere of the queer movement. With this, it is easy to see why there are serious concerns that other issues are simply being pushed off the agenda. Concerns such as queer mental health, trans* rights, gender identity and the overarching oppressive nature of our society, whilst still there in the background, are continuing to be pushed out in favour of same-sex marriage debates. Whilst this makes sense as same-sex marriage comes to a head, it is essential that as long as there is a focus on same-sex marriage, we don’t forget the broader goals of the movement.

Second, it is essential that the queer movement has a clear plan forward after same-sex marriage is wither won or lost. Whilst it is clear that many will focus on re-strategising if the issue fails in Parliament in 2012, we will also need to re-strategise if the law passes Parliament in 2012. The debate over same-sex marriage has seen the queer movement gain almost unprecedented coverage and support, with a community that clearly feels empathy with the issues the queer movement are putting forward. If, and when, same-sex marriage passes we need to clearly think about how we can keep this momentum going, so we can tackle the big issues facing our society.

Whilst some may say that this is something we can deal with after same-sex marriage is passed, by then it may be too late. All one needs to do is look at the loss of momentum for the union movement’s Your Rights @ Work campaign after the election of the Rudd Government to see that victories, whilst sweet, can halt significant momentum. Dealing with that potential now is essential for dealing for long-term success.

If you are someone who cares about same-sex marriage, things are looking bright in 2012. Yet, as the campaign momentum for same-sex marriage heats up, so does our responsibility to ensure a bright future for the queer movement after any legislation is passed. We have real potential to take this momentum to the next stage and to be able to really deal with some of the issues facing the queer movement in Australia and around the world.