Cuba and homosexuals I
While Michael Schembri's historical assessment of Cuba's gay history (Write On, GLW #575) is correct and he is right about the 1990s closure of gay venues (one or two bars now serve the gay community, but are not openly identified as "gay" — just have principally gay patrons) as well as the "voluntary" suppression of gay/lesbian groups such as GALES, I think it is unfair to harp on the "right to organise" issue.
Has it occurred to anyone that it is precisely because life as a gay/lesbian in Cuba is not particularly difficult that there is no great energy by the gay community toward organising? This is not to say that the need does not exist. It's just that people live their lives here with little or no prejudice to deal with — at least from an official standpoint.
The occasional injustice will draw the ire of the community (a rabid article in the Tribuna de la Habana a couple of years ago attacking transvestites, for instance) but as there is no policy of oppression there is no ongoing resistance.
I agree with what Mariela Castro Espin has to say in the GLW [#573] article that drew this new correspondence on gay issues in Cuba: "I think gays and lesbians should try a strategy of greater integration into social spaces rather than organise, because if they 'organise', this could bring about a period of self-segregation, of isolation, and not greater social inclusion and a naturalisation of their sexual orientation in Cuban society."
I enjoy living with Cubans and integrating into every aspect of their culture. Many of my closest friends, for instance, are strong heterosexual-identifying rappers who — by befriending people such as myself — have opened up to the gay community in a manner that is totally incongruous with many rappers elsewhere in the world (at least, if their lyrics are anything to go by).
Cuba (with Australia and most of the world) has a long way to go in the matter of gay/lesbian rights, but let us not destroy what has been gained by attempting to radicalise, ghettoise and telling the gay community here what is good for it. Leave it to the Cubans to sort out their own future at their own speed. They've been pretty good at it in the past.
Simon Wollers
Havana, Cuba
Cuba and homosexuals II
Michael Schembri (Write On, GLW #575) can't have it both ways. He complains that GLW publishes articles which supposedly "understate" the problems faced by homosexuals in Cuba, but is then critical of GLW for publishing an interview with Eduardo Jimanez Garcia which points out that there is still "much more work to do" in Cuban society to ensure the full emancipation of homosexuals. It seems that, as far as Schembri is concerned, GLW is damned if they do and damned if they don't.
Schembri is correct in asserting that the "situation of Cuban homosexuals is a key test of the nature of the democratic rights in Cuba", however he seems to have missed that this is the very point being made by and being grappled with by Cuban officials, as the recent interview published in GLW highlighted.
In addition, in highlighting and recognising that progress is being made in Cuba on the issue of homosexual rights does not mean, as Schembri asserts, that GLW or supporters of the Cuban revolutionary government such as myself are uncritical of some of the solutions being put forward by Cuban officials.
While we may not necessarily agree with all the solutions being advocated we do, however, recognise that more and more civil space is being opened up in Cuba for a discussion on how best to advance the rights of gays and lesbians within a society in transition towards socialism and that this is very positive.
Kim Bullimore
Lakemba, NSW [Abrigded]
Passion of the Christ I
In a sense, The Passion of the Christ is a great Christian film. Spoken entirely in Latin and Aramaic, it is contrived, opaque and incomprehensible.
The Latin rarely matches the English subtitles. The Aramaic falls into incomprehensibility as the diction is mangled and slurred, although I grant the main character of the film has somewhat of an excuse in the last moments of the film.
It is anti-Jewish. Indeed, to overcome the sheer boredom of the presentation, I was able to play a game of picking out the sheer nastiness of a character in advance and the degree of nastiness, depending upon the degree of similarity to Jewish caricature.
King Herod and his friends are shown as either fallen, drunken sluts or the personification of poofy campness. If you had to choose between heaven or hell, I know where the producer thinks they are going.
Watch out for the odd appearance of Satan himself — slightly androgynous, bookish-looking and smooth-talking. Gibson evidently feels that for a personification of Satan you just have to look to many of the people to be found around Newtown, Carlton or (insert trendy university suburb of choice).
It is an appalling movie. Rather than being spiritually uplifting, it led me to believe that if there is a God, he or she is one seriously sick puppy. The denouement was (dare I say it?) predictable. It could have done with a more uplifting ending — something like a Pythonesque "Always look on the bright side of life" sing-a-long would have done wonders.
As for the politics, it has none — apart from how beastly those natives are and what a burden it is to be an imperial dictator in a foreign outpost.
Surely, this whole movie is not just a thin and pretentious apology for imperial ambitions? And was that really a hint of a sequel at the end? Still, bits of the Latin sounded nice.
Dale Mills
Sydney
Passion of the Christ II
I, too, have just seen Gibson's Passion. And it is just that: Gibson's. Unfortunately (and I can use that word because I am an ordained, Lutheran pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) the movie is only a movie, based on Mel's faith, and not on mine.
I won't rehearse your reviewer's revulsion to particular scenes [see GLW #576]. I was sick of them before I saw them. Yet, historically, scourging was that bad, if the criminal fit the crime. And according to the four Gospel accounts in the New Testament, it would appear that Pilot and the authorities of the local temple both thought Jesus deserved at least the scourging.
But Jesus' death was a political punishment more than a religious one. For someone to claim kingship would be a threat to any secular ruler. For someone to claim to be the Son of God would be a threat to any religious institution and its leaders. For someone to claim to be Messiah God... well, that only would make things worse.
That's what the Jesus of the Bible did. And that's who I believe him to be.
It was a political death, contrived by secular and religious leaders to keep the status quo, when torture and killing were acceptable methods of keeping the status quo. No Jew deserves blame today. Nor does any other Jew, besides the few dozen or hundred, who pushed Pilate to the decision he made, 2000 years ago.
I did not see this film as anti-Semitic. I did see it as anti-despotic, anti-fundamentalist, anti-dictatorial. And no one religion or politic can escape its despots, fundamentalists, or dictators. Certainly none of mine.
It's a harsh film, best seen as an interpretation offered by one man, Mel Gibson, of his own faith. And nothing else.
Rev Dr Michael Wollman
Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin
Pilger
I think it speaks volumes about the mainstream press here, that you can read about John Pilger in the Sydney Morning Herald twice in one week (Gerard Henderson's column, March 16, Miranda Devine's column, March 18). But if you want to read what he has actually written or said, you have to read the British New Statesman, Green left Weekly here, go to the internet or you can hear him at one of his speaking engagements, always sold out.
Personally, I would rather read what he writes or hear what he says, than have it first go through the poor digestive systems of Gerard or Miranda.
Stephen Langford From Green Left Weekly, March 24, 2004.
Paddington, NSW
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