June 1994 marked the 25th anniversary of the riots sparked by police raids on New York's Stonewall Inn. These demonstrations signalled the rise of a radical movement for lesbian and gay liberation. RODNEY CROOME of the Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights Group who participated in the Stonewall 25 celebrations in New York spoke to Green Left Weekly's TOM FLANAGAN about the significance of Stonewall.
Describing the scene in Christopher Street in New York's Greenwich Village the day before the 1.2 million strong Stonewall march, Croome commented on the apparent aimlessness of the crowd. "There were thousands of gay men and lesbians walking in and out of bookshops and clothing stores. I didn't know why all these people were there really, and they didn't seem to know either.
"The Stonewall Inn has been reopened. It's been redecorated as it was in June 1969 with its original plastic veneer. Despite the really tacky interior I had to go in and have a drink, and think about what the whole thing actually meant.
"In the US, Stonewall is much more a focal point for action than it is here," Croome said, "but there are a range of different interpretations of the meaning of Stonewall which constantly battle each other. This is probably a key to its endurance as a symbolic event; people can make of it what they will.
The general tone in the US seemed to be, "AIDS activism is long gone, queer activism has died — what's next, what are we going to do, who are we, where are we going?"
Croome discovered other activists with the same impression. "I caught up with a guy who grew up in Tasmania and who now lives in Los Angeles and was involved in ACT UP and Queer Nation. He also felt this sense of weakness in the radical side of the movement. He linked it to the fact that people had not yet realised that things hadn't really improved under Clinton.
"The success in the Clinton regime parallels the success of Labor here; both are attempting to diffuse left-wing politics by giving a little bit, but not enough
"There definitely seemed to be a lot of confusion about where things were headed. There is a sense that queer politics has failed to mobilise large numbers of people for a sustained period.
"There always seemed to be a tension in queer politics. On the one hand, there was an embracing of a wide range of queer identities, a breaking down of the white middle-class gay — and to a lesser extent lesbian — hegemony over our movement." Yet, Croome said, an exclusivity, "not only of non queers, but increasingly of others within the queer community" tended to remain.
Croome described this exclusiveness in queer politics as "nationalism" with its own politically correct parameters. "There is a very narrow scope for action and thought. I think that strain came increasingly to dominate the movement — almost a kind of chauvinism.
"That may be one of the reasons Queer Nation groups fell apart; people were beginning to feel that the groups were not fulfilling the promise of recognising and accepting diversity.
"In the context of the demise of Queer Nation, the left of the gay and lesbian movement seems to be purposeless; it doesn't seem to be able to draw on Stonewall and instil in people a more radical sense of what needs to be done. Perhaps because people are not really sure what does need to be done. Or how to do it."
Croome also observed this uncertainty among the organisers of the Stonewall rally at the end of the big day. While the rally was "rousing" and Croome experienced "a strong sense of solidarity", he noted that "some of the organisers were asking questions such as: is this where we should be channelling our resources? Are the days of large rallies like this and the march on Washington [earlier this year] over? Should we be more involved in local initiatives in smaller places where the battle lines seem to be more drawn?
"With my belief in the importance of local struggles, I tended to confirm their doubts and say 'yes, perhaps that is where the resources of this community should be spent'."
"People are not quite sure what direction they should take and they don't know what inspiration to draw from Stonewall as a consequence."
[This is the final of a three-part series.]